


heirs to the glimmering world

by solitarydreaming



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Antagonistic Penpals to Lovers, Fluff, Humor, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining, musician ronan, technically a Juliet Naked AU but let's not question the details, that deserves to be a thing so I'm making it a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28016991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitarydreaming/pseuds/solitarydreaming
Summary: Falling for elusive indie rock-star Ronan Lynch was not part of Adam's ten-year plan. But when his scathing album review prompts a response from the myth himself, Adam finds his carefully-managed life upended in the most unexpected of ways.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 201
Kudos: 236





	1. january

On paper, Gansey is the perfect roommate.

He buys his own groceries and does his fair share of the household chores. He’s warm and friendly and respectful of Adam’s boundaries. He’s nice to Adam’s friends. He gives Adam advance warning before inviting over his own friends. He doesn’t blast his music late at night, or hold chaotic parties every weekend, or act out with violence or passive-aggression.

Hell, Adam even _likes_ the guy, which is more than can be said for any of the previous jerks he’s had to put up with.

The only problem is Ronan Lynch.

“It’s not a shrine,” Gansey told Adam that fateful day two months ago, when Adam knocked on his door and found him trying to hang a framed Lynch t-shirt to the wall. “It’s memorabilia.”

Adam shot a pointed look at the desk beside them, where a signed deluxe edition of Lynch’s one and only album _Bright Dead Kings_ sat artfully arranged beside copies of all of Lynch’s EPs and a record player with Lynch’s music playing inside. There was also a photo of Gansey and Lynch arm-in-arm at a waterfront DC bar, and a collage of article clippings decorating the wall — Lynch’s Pitchfork and the Fader exclusives, various reviews from around the web proclaiming him ‘the freshest new talent of his generation,’ a black and white image of his face blown up to epic proportions. Gansey had the original in a drawer somewhere.

“It’s a collection of memorabilia,” Gansey amended when he caught Adam staring.

“So a shrine, then.”

“I’m not obsessed with him.”

“No, where did I get that idea? You only run a fan forum.”

“I mod a fan forum.” The frame tilted dangerously sideways; Adam stepped in to right it. “There are dozens of us.”

“Like the dozens of you who made that podcast?”

“I was a one-time guest contributor, that was nothing.”

“What about all those weekly video calls your group does? Are they nothing?”

“Monthly. Monthly video calls.”

Adam stared Gansey down until Gansey relented and said, “He’s mythic, Adam. We’ve been over this. The man’s in a league of his own.”

Mythic, like the rebellious kings and queens and knights of old that Gansey studied at college and loves to info-dump about to anyone who’ll listen. Difference is, Ronan Lynch hasn’t done anything as exciting as stage a revolt against the English. He’s barely famous enough for Wikipedia. He’s just some moody indie-rock star that disappeared from the limelight seven years ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Hence the fan forum, and the video calls, and the fanatic fervour with which Gansey and his fellow fanboys dissect Lynch’s lyrics. Lynch is a true crime story waiting to be solved, except the only mystery here is whether he ditched stardom to run a sheep farm in Sweden.

Gansey’s theory is that he’s ‘taking a mental health break.’ The craziest of the forum dwellers have voted for fratricide, citing aggressive lyrics that point towards bad blood between Lynch and a resentful brother. Adam doesn’t care either way, but he _is_ grudgingly impressed by Lynch’s ability to go completely off-grid. There are no social media accounts to speak of, no stories of awkward fan run-ins, not a peep from family or any proof that he even has one. The man’s a ghost.

Years ago, before college, Adam used to dream of that, too. To disappear. To escape. To reject the poor hand he’d been dealt and wander off the edges of people’s minds, recreating himself somewhere new. And he’d achieved it mostly, when he left for the west coast and never looked back, but Adam knows it’s an easily shattered illusion. His old classmates can look him up any time they want and see what’s become of him. His parents can do that, too. Taking a ‘mental health break’ isn’t an option with that kind of audience.

So Adam’s impressed by Ronan Lynch. He’s envious of Ronan Lynch. More than anything though, he’s sick to death of hearing about Ronan Lynch.

Even Adam’s never been this in love with another man before, and unlike Gansey, he actually sleeps with them.

-

Change arrives on a Thursday night at the tail-end of January.

Adam’s tired, and hungry, and stressed out his mind. He’s been at work for twelve hours, with only an hour long break in between. Technically he didn’t need to stay that long, technicallyhe could’ve left at five like he’s supposed to, but technicalities aren’t going to get him promoted. So Adam stuck around even when half his team left the building, and he gritted his teeth when Tim, the company COO, showed up to prove his incompetence and badger the remaining engineers on site, and he told himself, _This is worth it. All good things require sacrifice. You know you’re getting somewhere when the climb starts to hurt._

Except now he’s home and Ronan Lynch is blasting from Gansey’s room, and that’s one sacrifice too many tonight.

Adam knocks on Gansey’s door. He’s not going to be rude about it; he’s just going to calmly ask Gansey to turn the music down. Hardly grounds for a roommate break-up, although he’s been given the silent treatment before for far less. Something about his tone and the way he looks at people and ‘Jesus, dude, stop talking about the dishes. You’re not my fucking mom.’

Gansey opens the door. He’s dressed in PJs, his hair is a dishevelled mess, and there’s an all-round frenzied air to his appearance. Before Adam can get any words out, he says, “You won’t believe what’s happened.”

“Did Ronan Lynch break his seven-year silence to give you a live show?”

“He sent me a letter.”

Adam stares at Gansey flatly. He’d been joking, but he gets the feeling Gansey’s not.

“Come in,” Gansey ushers him into the room, “Come see this, you need to see this. I’ve been in a state of prolonged shock all afternoon. It’s so — Christ, it’s _unreal_.”

“Have you been locked in here all day?” Adam asks, but Gansey doesn’t hear him. He drags Adam towards his desk-slash-shrine, where his computer’s loaded to the Ronan Lynch fan forum and an album that’s not the one Gansey owns a dozen copies of is playing from the speakers.

Gansey rummages around on his desk, muttering to himself, “It’s around here somewhere — I could’ve sworn I put it down over—”

“Here?” Adam holds up a folded piece of paper, already wrinkled from use.

“That’s it! Read it, will you? I need outside confirmation that this is happening.”

Adam’s on the verge of saying _later_ , but Gansey’s watching him with manic intensity. He looks like he’s on the verge of swinging from the rooftop, or maybe having a panic attack. So Adam does the only reasonable thing he can do; he unfolds the letter and starts reading.

_Gansey,_

_Thanks for keeping the forum alive. Been working on something a little different and thought it might be of interest to you. Would love to hear your thoughts._

_All good things,_

_Ronan Lynch_

Adam’s first thought is, _Lynch didn’t write this_. Not Ronan Lynch, notoriously foul-mouthed, penning a note this blandly polite. He gets the feeling that won’t go down well with Gansey, though, so he says, “He sent you an album? Of new music?”

“Well, there are some covers and a couple new versions of old songs — but essentially, yes.” Gansey walks over to the speaker. “I’ll play it from the start, just wait.”

Adam listens closely as one track segues into another. He keeps listening as Gansey fills him in on exactly what time he discovered the letter, and what he’s been doing ever since he found the letter, and how he’s in two minds about sharing the news with the forum because what are the protocols for a situation like this? Is he allowed to talk about it? Does Ronan _want_ him to talk about it? He didn’t include a return address so surely — how else is Gansey supposed to make his thoughts about the album known to him? And come to think of it, why did he choose Gansey? Has he sent copies out to reputable music critics too? Or did he pick Gansey because of their personal connection? Do you think he remembers that, Adam? It all happened so fast — and it was eight years ago, you know, you can’t blame anyone for forgetting you after eight years, least of all someone on Ronan’s level. But the _colossal impact it left_ —

“It’s obvious, right? You’re his loudest fan. When you talk, people listen.”

Gansey stops talking. His brows furrow. “I’m not following.”

“He wants you to drum him up some free publicity,” Adam explains. “You know, to guarantee sales once the album’s released.”

“I doubt it. Ronan’s not the calculated type.”

“He’s selling a product. Calculation’s required.”

“That’s not — It’s never been about the money for him.”

 _It’s always about the money_ , Adam thinks, but of course Gansey won’t get that; he’s always had far more money than he knows what to do with. He can afford to care about integrity.

“Look, it’s shitty of him to think he can bribe you to do his dirty work,” Adam says, “real shitty, but you don’t owe him anything. Just be honest with everyone. Tell them the album sucks.”

Gansey’s eyes widen, and that’s when Adam realizes his mistake.

“Wait. You _don’t_ think it sucks?”

“You _do_?”

Goddamn it.

The thing is, Adam doesn’t hate Lynch. Far from it. He _knows_ Lynch is talented. There’s an intimacy to his music, all lo-fi indie delivered in whispery vocals meant for late night bedroom listening, and it hits deep. His lyrics are wry and frank and bittersweet, whether he’s singing of nostalgia-laden southern summers or wandering through a wake in a drunken haze. He’s clever. He’s funny. He’s got a unique voice. Adam gets the appeal.

But this…well, it’s a far cry from the work that earned him a cult following and the respect of critics everywhere. It’s a knock-off edition of Bright Dead Kings, stripped of emotional complexity and interesting arrangements. It’s lacking everything that made his debut so compelling. It’s like he doesn’t care at all.

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve heard,” Adam says. “It’s just…dull.”

“It’s masterful,” Gansey argues, and Adam resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I mean, the simplicity of the arrangements. The utter restraint in his voice. This is a man at the top of his game.”

“Or it’s a man who went bankrupt and then remembered there’s a cash cow he can milk.”

“Christ, you’re so cynical,” Gansey says. “Not everyone has an ulterior motive, Parrish. Sometimes people make art just because.”

“Oh, this is art, huh?”

“It is!”

“All right. Let’s agree to disagree,” Adam says, only half meaning it. Gansey doesn’t nod along. He looks downright downtrodden, like Adam killed his puppy right in front of him. Which is absurd. Adam’s said nothing mean to _Gansey_. He’s barely been mean at all. All he did was criticize Lynch’s poor attempt at milking the cash cow, and frankly, he could’ve said a lot worse. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Of course not,” Gansey says, but the look on his face says otherwise. “Diversity of opinion is always a good thing.”

Adam decides not to push it. He’s still tired and hungry and stressed, and now mildly annoyed to top it all off. There’s no use adding roommate-less to the list. God knows who he’ll find on Craigslist at this time of night.

“I’m gonna order pizza,” he says. “You want anything?”

“That’s all right.”

Adam’s half out the door when Gansey shouts, “Wait!”

He turns around. “Sausage and avocado?”

“I’m not hungry,” Gansey says. “I just…I handled that badly, sorry. I don’t want you thinking I respect you any less because of a dumb disagreement.”

“It’s fine, Gansey.”

“I mean, the album’s seminal, of course, but it’s fine if you don’t get it. Truly fine. Not everyone has to get it.”

Adam grits his teeth. He can’t fight with Gansey because he’s lacking the energy. He can’t fight with Gansey because Gansey pays half his rent. He can’t fight with Gansey because he is twenty-seven years old, god damn it, and he has more maturity than that.

“Right, I don’t get it,” Adam says, voice dripping with scorn. “Maybe your internet friends will get it.”

Gansey perks up. “So you think I should post my review?”

 _Don’t fight with Gansey because it’s not his fault he was born_ _with more money than he has sense_ _. Don’t fight with Gansey because you like him, mostly, even if it’s currently hard to remember why_ —

“Do what you want, man.”

Adam doesn’t bother ordering pizza after that. He makes something quick to eat and then heads to bed in an even worse mood than before.

Gansey didn’t mean it. He wasn’t trying to cause offense, but the implications nag at Adam until his head starts to hurt. _You wouldn’t get it_ , said with a disparaging sneer, one look at his second-hand sweaters and unevenly cropped hair. _You’ll never get it._

Gansey isn’t like the barbaric Aglionby boys Adam went to school with, rich and cruel and eager to make Adam the butt of their jokes. He’s not like the pompous Stanford kids either, the ones who didn’t need to single Adam out in any obvious way, who recognized that Adam’s Adamness was statement enough. Gansey’s different, kinder, a trust fund kid who devotes his energy to studying history despite his parents’ wishes because he’s _passionate_ and _enthusiastic_ and he cares more about the pursuit of knowledge than he does amassing more excess wealth. Gansey’s never commented on their class disparity or so much as hinted at seeing it. He’s always treated Adam like an equal. He’ll say offensive things by accident and then apologize in the same breath.

But he’s hit a sore spot tonight. Adam hears those words — _you don’t get it_ — and all his old insecurities come hurtling back. He remembers hundreds of hours spent in his freshman dorm doing deep dives on Wikipedia and Reddit, catching himself up on everything his shitty childhood had excluded him from. Decades of pop culture knowledge memorized with a click. He wouldn’t be caught off guard at parties anymore when someone made a movie reference or tried to talk to him about Game of Thrones. He wouldn’t be made to feel stupid.

 _You don’t get it_. But Adam’s worked hard to get it. He gets it just fine. He gets that Gansey is condescending and has bad taste.

 _You’re more mature than this_ , he thinks to himself as a crazy, stupid, no-good, terrible idea pops into his mind. _Be the bigger man._

But Adam is nothing if not petty; when an hour passes with sleep still not on the horizon, he grabs his phone and types the name of Gansey’s forum into the search bar.

-

“…And it’s got fourteen likes, see? That’s fourteen people who agree with me.”

“How many likes does Gansey’s review have?”

“That’s not the point. The point is, I’m not the only one who doesn’t get it. Gansey can’t say I’m not as smart as him when the fans on his own website — Oh, fifteen! Did you see that?”

“Question,” Henry says. “Are you willing to reconsider the merits of Instagram? I think it could provide you with the exact short-lived power rush you’re after.”

“I’m not after a power rush,” Adam says. “I just want Gansey to admit he’s wrong.”

Henry leans over the table to gently pat Adam’s hand. “It’s cute that you believe that.”

“Believe what?” Blue asks, suddenly appearing at the head of their table with a coffee in one hand and a vegan scone in the other.

Veganism is Blue’s latest cause, or so she said on the phone the other night. Adam hasn’t seen her in person since the New Year, when Henry threw a party at his and Blue’s apartment and Blue coaxed Gansey into doing shots. Gansey spent the next two days ill on the bathroom floor, lamenting his existence. Adam spent the next two days cleaning sick out of the cracks in the tiles and unclogging the toilet.

In any case, Adam spotted the vegan cafe on his way to work this morning and messaged Blue to let her know. Blue, whose new job comes with the perks of working at home on Fridays, suggested they meet up for lunch today. Henry, whose new job comes with the perks of working in the same building as Adam, insisted on inviting himself along.

Frankly, if Adam had known that ‘vegan cafe’ was a buzzword for every bearded flannel-wearing hipster in the Bay Area, he never would’ve sent that text.

Henry scoots to the inside of the booth to make room for Blue. She sits down beside him and raises her brow at Adam’s phone, which is lying flat on the table between them. Having the two of them perched across from him takes this meeting from casual to court-like real fast, but Adam’s got nothing to feel ashamed of here. He’s not the one who implied Gansey was stupid for having a different opinion on an _album_.

“Gansey’s a condescending moron,” Adam says, and pushes down the guilt he feels at having said that out loud.

“I could’ve told you that the second I met him,” Blue says. “What else is new?”

“Adam’s been pursuing a career change in music journalism,” Henry supplies.

“It’s one review. I’m not gonna make a habit of it.”

“Why ever not? Expanding one’s horizons is never a bad thing. You could be doing with a new hobby — although, I must admit, I would’ve picked something that involved going outside.”

“Does this have something to do with that Ronan Lynch guy again?” Blue asks. Henry makes a _cut the take_ gesture with his hands, never mind that Adam is sitting right in front of them.

Blue meets Henry’s gaze. They share one of their freaky psychic looks, all raised brows and meaningful eye contact that alerts everyone within seeing distance that they’re operating on a frequency no one else can dare to connect with.

It used to make Adam jealous. Not that he wanted that with them — he’s better off not knowing what goes on in his friends’ heads, thanks very much — but sometimes, on his worst nights, he craved it with someone. Belonging. Understanding. To be known so intimately, to be heard without having to speak. To be more than Adam Parrish, army of one.

But that’s a stupid basis on which to measure a relationship’s merit. He’s not alone anymore. He’s not lonely. Having two good friends is enough, even if he sometimes feels like a spare part.

So he launches into the Ronan Lynch saga for the second time this afternoon. He shows Blue the forum with his and Gansey’s reviews side by side, and he waits for her to agree with him, because why wouldn’t she agree with him?

“I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here,” Blue says bluntly. “Do you really think Gansey will see this and change his mind?”

“I don’t want to change his mind. I want him to accept he can’t change mine.”

She turns to Henry. “Back me up here.”

“No can do. I take my role as impartial observer very seriously, in these factions.”

“Adam,” Blue sighs, “do you want me to tell you what your problem is?”

“I’d say no if I thought that was an option.”

“You don’t have a life.”

The hurt is sharp and unexpected, like a papercut sting between the fingers.

“Thanks,” he says dryly. “Really needed to hear that.”

“Social life!” Blue says. “I meant social life. You don’t do anything interesting or worthwhile—”

“Were you a motivational speaker in a past life?”

“ _Pshaw_ , you know I don’t mean it how it sounds.”

“I think I see where you’re going with this, Bluebird,” Henry cuts in, always to the rescue. He steals Blue’s coffee and takes a sip before she can protest, then adds, “You’re saying that our boy Parrish is like a meerkat trapped in his little zoo enclosure—”

“Why a meerkat?”

“—and, deprived of enriching new stimulus, he has resorted to the age old habit of picking fights within his cage.”

“Exactly,” Blue says, before Adam can ask if Henry’s ever been to the zoo. She deftly moves her coffee to the other side of the table as she adds, “You’re tired and overworked and it’s driving you to start internet drama for a fleeting sense of joy in your otherwise miserable existence. It’s a blatant cry for help.”

“Well, damn,” Adam says in as bored a tone as he can manage. “If I knew you both had psych degrees, I could’ve stopped paying my therapist a while ago.”

“If you had a therapist, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.”

“People, people,” Henry proclaims. “There’s no need for cattiness. We are all on the same team.”

Adam tears a chunk off his baguette and aggressively chews on it. His life is fine. He’s not miserable. He does plenty of things that are worthwhile. Working hard is worthwhile. Saving up is worthwhile. Planning ahead is worthwhile. Might not be interesting, but that’s okay; interestingis a thing for _later._

And what would Blue know, anyway? She’s always been whimsical, seizing opportunities as they pass her by, the future a distant glimmering possibility. Just because Adam’s choices don’t make sense to her doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with how he’s living his life.

“I can’t believe you’re on Gansey’s side,” he says, because that feels like the simplest part of this to tackle.

“I’m on _your_ side,” Blue says, “and that’s why I think you should quit antagonizing your roommate while you’re ahead. You go through them faster than Orla goes through boyfriends. You have a problem, Adam!”

His mind supplies a hazy recollection of the New Year’s party: bashful smiles, hands lingering on the elbow, Blue and Gansey floating in each other’s orbit all night.

Maybe that means something, maybe it doesn’t. But Adam decides not to pull on that thread, going instead for the easier option: “I thought you said Orla was settled down?”

“That is so far from the point I was making and you know it.”

“Also no longer true. Orla arrived on our doorstep last night,” Henry says, then lowers his voice to stage-whisper, “There was an incident. A January break-up.”

“And she came to _you_ for moral support?”

“As if she needs it.” Blue snorts. “Her boyfriend tried to propose, and you know how Orla feels about eternal love and the institution of marriage.”

The same way Blue does, but Adam’s not willing to deal with the fallout from saying that; Blue always did count herself the black sheep of the Sargent clan.

“Who can blame her, really.” Henry reaches around the table whip-fast and snatches Blue’s coffee again. “A January proposal might be the one thing worse than a January break-up.”

Blue glares daggers at Henry; he smiles meekly and hands the cup back.

“Anyway,” she pointedly looks at Adam, “that’s another reason you can’t be picking fights with Gansey. I told Orla we’d grab dinner at yours tonight.”

“Without asking me?”

“I’m asking now.”

“Well, I can’t. I’ve got so much shit to finish—”

“God forbid you leave work at a reasonable time like a reasonable human being.”

“Tim’s been on our case all week about the new prototype. If we don’t have something to show for ourselves by Monday, he’ll flip.”

“Tim is a snivelling little worm of a man,” Henry declares. “Why do you care what he thinks?”

“He’s our boss,” Adam points out.

“All the more reason to rebel! We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Blue glares at them both.

“You’re a trust fund baby,” she says to Henry. “You don’t get to quote Marx. And _you_ ,” she adds, turning on Adam, “You need to look into developing a healthy work-life balance before you have a stress-induced heart attack at the age of thirty-three.”

“I—”

“It’s one night. You can afford to act normal for one night, _please_. Henry’s got a date, and if I’m left alone with Orla I really might end up killing her. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Adam carefully considers the alternative — staying late while the rest of his team leaves on account of it being a Friday; grabbing a shitty microwave meal while the kitchen’s free; scurrying back to his room to avoid an awkward run-in with Gansey, all the while knowing that the tension in the apartment’s only going to get worse the longer they go without seeing each other.

None of it is appealing, but then again, _right now_ never is. That’s what _later_ is for.

“Okay, fine,” he says, and Blue smiles. “I’ll make nice with Gansey. But only if you do this one thing for me first.”

“Name it.”

Adam passes his phone over. “Make an account on here and like my review.”

“Goddamn you,” Blue groans. “You are everything that’s wrong with men.”

-

“So, Orla, how long are you in town for?”

“Why, are you looking to take me out?”

Orla says this with a teasing smile that has Blue, on the other side of the table, reaching for the wine. Gansey keeps his self-assured front in place, although there’s a definite nervous edge to the way he smiles back in return.

Adam’s beginning to wish he’d stayed at work.

On the plus side, at least he doesn’t have to spend the whole weekend avoiding his roommate. Gansey’s talking to him again, hasn’t mentioned last night’s fiasco at all. He must know about Adam’s review by now — there’s no one else who could’ve written it — but if Gansey’s choosing to ignore it then Adam’s not about to disrupt the fragile peace by bringing it up. It might be better this way, water swept under the bridge. If he’s lucky, they’ll never speak of Ronan Lynch again.

Not that that’s kept Adam from refreshing the forum every second minute. Twenty seven likes and two comments so far, but he’s sure he deserves more. He brought his A-grade to that review. You’d think he was an English major.

Maybe Henry had a point, about the whole power rush thing.

“I’d never assume myself worthy of the privilege,” Gansey says, charming and unflappable. He’s in the Mask mode tonight, as Blue likes to call it, the perfect talk and the perfect smile and the perfect dinner host manners that betray his years of old-money breeding. This Gansey makes Adam wary for the same reasons he smooths out the nerves in everybody else: he’s far too flawless.

Adam knows it’s not the whole truth, but when Gansey gets like this, it’s hard to recall that another more human version of him exists. Adam can’t help the bitter tinge of envy he feels in this Gansey’s presence, that feeling that he’ll never measure up. This Gansey can get away with being a perpetual student and a fervid obsessive. His weirdness doesn’t prevent him from keeping scores of friends. He’s a king among men, beyond reproach.

Orla flirts some more, and Adam watches as Gansey laughs in all the right places and steers the conversation back onto neutral ground in a way that feels natural rather than like an obvious rebuke. It is, admittedly, impressive.

“I haven’t decided yet, to be honest,” Orla says, finally answering the original question. “I did a reading for myself this morning and I pulled Knight of Wands, and it got me thinking. You know, I’m young. I’m at my peak. I should embrace this ride I’m on.”

“Right, I’m with you, some new experiences!” Gansey says. “I’ve always felt life’s too short to stay in one place too long.”

“ _Exactly_. Who knows, I might even move here permanently.”

“Move here?” Blue says. “And do what?”

“I could get my business off the ground.”

“Since when do you have a business?”

“My oils business? I told you all about it?”

“Oh my god.”

Orla turns back to Gansey and says, “I’ve always been told I’ve got an entrepreneurial spirit, and what better way to maximize my potential—”

“It’s a pyramid scheme, Orla!”

“Ah,” Gansey says. He shoots Adam a look of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it panic, which Adam firmly ignores. “Well, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? Those goddamn MLMs. Say, Orla, what do you know about Ronan Lynch?”

And off comes the mask.

“This isn’t funny,” Blue says sometime later, as she and Adam lounge on the couch while Gansey gives Orla the full tour of the apartment, Lynch shrine and all.

Adam flops his head against Blue’s shoulder and lets out a laugh. He’s not drunk — he hates getting drunk — but he’s buzzed enough for this whole situation to feel hilarious.

“It is a little bit,” he says. “It’s…what do you call it…poetic justice?”

“You didn’t have to live with Orla when she went through her One Direction phase. What if Gansey brings the fangirl out of her again?”

“Like I said, poetic justice. Don’t expect me to sympathize.”

“You’re a terrible friend,” Blue says, and nudges his shoulder.

“I’m an honest friend and you love me for it.”

Blue falls silent. Adam gives her a second before sitting up to study her. She’s got this thoughtful look on her face that Adam can’t read, one that makes him wary.

“What?” he asks.

“You know what I said before, at lunch,” Blue starts, “that wasn’t me trying to be an asshole.”

Adam’s not sure where this is going, so he raises a disdainful brow.

“When I say stuff like that, it’s coming from a friend place, okay? A _concerned_ friend place.”

“What are you so concerned about?”

“Those bags under your eyes, for starters.”

Adam shrugs. It’s not that he hasn’t noticed them before, but he’s never given them much thought. He’s always looked like this, after all. He’s always been tired.

Sometimes on his worst nights, when the weight of responsibility threatens to knock him flat, Adam sits on his little bedroom balcony and looks out at the vast San Francisco skyline and he wonders, does everybody feel this way? Like they’re drifting through the motions, half-asleep? Is that what real life is?

Not for Blue or Henry. Probably not for Gansey. Definitely not for Orla.

It’s only Adam who’s never content unless he’s striving for more.

He doesn’t say any of this to Blue, and thankfully he doesn’t have to. Gansey and Orla reappear, drawing both his and Blue’s attention away from each other. Gansey’s talking and gesturing with animated glee while Orla watches attentively and snaps at a piece of gum. Is she bored? Impressed? Waiting for the opportunity to launch her essential oils selling pitch? Adam genuinely can’t tell. He thinks Blue’s about to burst a vein in her forehead.

If he didn’t know beforehand, he does now: Blue has a thing for Gansey.

When Gansey’s eyes briefly drift in their direction, Adam realizes it might be a mutual thing.

And isn’t that nice? Adam’s happy for them, definitely. Good people deserve good things.

“I mean, I get it,” he hears Orla saying. “He’s hot. Who wouldn’t go groupie for _that_?”

Gansey chokes on his wine. Blue goes from pissed to amused in the blink of an eye.

“That’s — No, I — My interest in Ronan is purely from an intellectual—”

“Yeah, yeah, keep talking, pretty boy.”

“He saved my life,” Gansey blurts out suddenly.

All eyes in the room train on Gansey’s face. Orla’s brows are raised halfway up her forehead. Blue’s leaning forward, interest unmistakable.

“Metaphorically?” she asks.

“No, literally,” Gansey says. “It was at this music festival he played in Virginia. We were out in the fields in the heat of summer, and I should’ve thought to be more careful but I wasn’t. I got stung by a bee, and I’m allergic, see, and Ronan noticed me going into anaphylactic shock and jumped straight into action. He used to carry Epipens around everywhere he went, for his brother. He helped me before anyone else could figure out something was wrong. He’s a good person, you know, so much _more_ than his public image. If it weren’t for him, god knows if I’d be here today.” Gansey sucks in a breath. “I owe him a life debt.”

His eyes are far away, caught up in eight-year-old haunting memories. Adam knew Gansey had briefly known Ronan, that they’d sneaked into a DC bar with fake IDs after one of his concerts and got a few rounds together, but he didn’t realize _this_ was the basis of the connection. It stuns him, Gansey’s unshakable loyalty to this man he barely knows, this man who’s more mythic than human, this man who’s the reason Gansey lived to meet Adam at all.

Adam’s never believed in anything the way Gansey believes in Ronan Lynch. Maybe that’s his problem.

Or maybe worshiping celebrities to this degree is unhealthy. That’s much more likely.

Adam pulls his phone out to refresh the forum. Something’s different this time, though. There’s a red alert button beside his account picture.

He clicks on it and finds, to his surprise, a chat box with a new message inside. He didn’t think Gansey’s forum was advanced enough _for_ chat boxes.

****have we met before?** **

What is that supposed to mean? Is it a veiled threat? A bad pick-up line? If the love of his life is lurking behind a screen, attempting their grand seduction through Gansey’s fan forum, then frankly Adam’s fine with a lifetime of singlehood.

There’s no point replying. He’s got nothing to say, either way. He rarely does in-person socializing, never mind the online equivalent.

But Adam’s never been one to leave a question unanswered. He types back a single question mark and clicks send.

The reply is instantaneous:

****you either got a grudge you been towing around seven years or you’re a sadsack buzzkill for the hell of it** **

Then, seconds later:

****assuming it’s a grudge. i’m an optimist** ** ****  
** ** ****you were right btw. album’s trash. but fuck man what’s your damage?** ** ****  
** ** ****did i refuse to take a selfie with you?** **

Adam stares at the screen in complete shock. Wonder. Amazement.

Did some random internet stranger just send him hate mail?

 _Thanks for the input_ , he types back, _but no grudges here_. _Just an appreciation for innovative music._ _  
__And I’m all for freedom of expression, but if you’re gonna roleplay as Ronan Lynch then at least put some effort in._

****who says it’s roleplay?** **

_Funny._

****not joking. ask me anything** **

Adam looks up from the phone. He’s not naive. He knows he’s being messed with. Still…

“Hey, Gansey?”

Gansey glances up from across the room. “Yeah?”

“What’s the name of that bar you and Lynch got drinks at?”

He’s not expecting a reply from this online troll, not really. Hell, the real Ronan Lynch probably won’t know the answer to that question either. He probably won’t remember Gansey. He probably doesn’t know Gansey’s forum exists, even if his letter claimed otherwise. Gansey can’t be the only fan he’s gone out drinking with after a gig.

He might be the only fan Ronan’s saved from imminent death, though.

The chat button lights up. Adam clicks on it despite common sense urging him to give up on this pointless conversation.

****you’re friends with gansey?** ** ****  
** ** ****does he know you’re a fucking square?** **

_Way to dodge the question._

****im not** ** ******  
** ****it was that place down by union stage. charlie something** ** ****  
** ** ******long time ago, cut me some slack**

Adam’s jaw drops.

Did _Ronan Lynch_ break his seven-year silence just to send Adam hate mail?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is technically a juliet, naked au but only in the loosest definition of the word, so if you've seen the movie (or read the book, unlike me) then just know I'm sorry in advance for butchering the source material. I write to make myself laugh and oh boy am I easily amused
> 
> also what is a music fic without a playlist? this chapter was brought to you by [modern man - arcade fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUXFIyKAHI)
> 
> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com/)


	2. february

Adam’s a smart, sensible member of the human race. He knows when to walk away from a losing battle, when to be merciless with assholes that aren’t worth his time. He cut his parents off at eighteen, and he’s only grown more effective in the years since at picking up on warning signs and distancing himself from bullies and sycophants before they can drag him in.

So it should be easy, in theory, for him to block this Ronan Lynch character and move the hell on with his life.

In theory.

“What’s got you in high spirits? Are you on Twitter? Did our conversation last Friday finally prompt you to join the land of the twenty-first century?”

Adam looks up from his work computer and finds Henry leaning over the desk in a deliberately provocative manner. He’s watching Adam with a sly smile on his face, one that says _I know you’re up to something_ better than words ever could.

Adam feels like he’s been caught red-handed. Not that he was doing anything wrong. So he took a break to send some messages, so what? Everybody does it. Short breaks boost productivity; he’s following the science.

“You know I don’t have time for that superficial nonsense, Cheng,” he says witheringly, and switches over to a different tab. “What are you doing here, anyway? You know they tend to notice when your toilet break takes fifty minutes.”

“I’m dragging you to lunch before you starve and wither away.”

Adam checks his watch and frowns. He could’ve sworn it was only twelve.

“Noble of you.”

“Oh, make no mistake, my motivations are entirely selfish. You’d make a dreadful office ghost with that attitude of yours.”

Adam rolls his eyes. He clicks back to the forum and reads Lynch’s latest message one last time — ****oh so you think your lame ass is too good for the prodigy? is there anything you DONT hate? —**** before logging off and grabbing his sweatshirt.

-

Why is Adam still talking to Lynch?

Well, it’s simple: there’s a story in here somewhere, and Adam doesn’t walk away from unanswered questions.

_So I’m right about your cash-grab album but I’m the asshole? How does that work?_

****you’re a know-it-all contrarian bastard, just own it** **

_Wow._ _  
__Cutting psychoanalysis from an internet stranger._ _  
__Sure gonna take this to heart._

 ****don’t get pissy with me just cos you’re easy to read** ** ****  
**** ****and i’m not the stranger, you’re the stranger. you could be annie wilkes for all i know** **

_The premise of Misery was clearly lost on you._ _  
__Also, you reached out to me._

 ****because** ** ****you joined my fan site just to shittalk me** ** ****  
**** ****gotta learn what your damage is** ** ****  
**** ****protect the nerds from your psychological warfare** **

_Are you telling me you’re twenty-seven years old and this is the first time anyone’s criticized you?_ _  
__Lynch, that’s sad._ _  
__I’m mourning all that lost potential for character development._

 ****knew you were out of whack** ** ****  
**** ****CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT** ** ****  
**** ****who the fuck talks like that** **

_You wrote a song about the Aeneid._ _You’re not fooling_ _anyone_ _with your dumb jock act._

Okay, so the story is buried deep. Lynch is a tough shell to crack. Good news is, Adam’s found an angle to work.

****weird how you know my name and i don’t know yours** **

_Yeah, well, you jumped straight to insulting me before thinking to ask._

****that was me asking fuck** ** ****face** **

_I got that._

****not gonna tell me?** ** ****  
**** ****what you hiding** **

_Have you never heard of stranger danger?_

****we've been over this** ** ****  
**** ****you're the stranger** **

_You know I’m friends with Gansey._

****you want me to call you gansey?** **

_Okay how about this: I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine._ _  
__A fair exchange of_ _info._ _  
__Sound good?_

 ****you first** ** ****  
**** ****what’s your name** **

_Parrish._ _  
__Did you really abandon the music scene to run a sheep farm in Sweden?_

****not sweden** **

_But you do run a sheep farm?_

****not sheep** ** ****  
**** ****that was two questions** ** ****shithead** **

_Don’t be so vague then._

****that wasn’t in the rules** ** ****  
**** ****what car do you drive?** **

_Why would you need to know that?_

****i’m getting to know you**** ** **man** ** ****  
**** ****putting a face to the name** **

_You could’ve just asked what I look like._

****not a creep** ** ****  
**** ****anyway i** ** ****can guess all that  
** **

_Really? What do I look lik_ _e_ _then?_

 ****g**** ** **lasses** ** ****  
**** ****bowlcut** ** ****  
**** ****bowties** ** ****  
**** ****some other smug nerd shit** ** ****  
**** ****tell me what car** **

_I see we’re doing_ _outdated_ _stereotypes._ _  
__And not everyone can afford a car._

 ****jesus christ parrish** ** ****  
**** ****what car** **

_Not everyone can drive._

****MOTHERFUCKER** **

_Ok ok_ _  
__It’s an Audi._

****what kind** **

_S4._ _  
__That was two questions, shithead._

 ****bullshit** ** ****  
**** ****get an m3** **

_That’s not an Audi?_

****yeah cos audis are for pretentious poser douchebags** ** ****  
**** ****you wanna be a douchebag, stop half assing it and upgrade** **

_So to clarify, your problem with me is I’m not a big enough douchebag?_

****you’re a massive douchebag** ** ****  
**** ****get an m3** **

_Give me one good reason to do that._

****0-60 in 4.1 secs** ** ****  
**** ****that’s why** **

_I’m averaging 0-60 in 4.5._ _  
__Doing just fine, thanks._

Well, the angle’s a start. He’s still working on his execution.

Trading questions with Lynch soon becomes another facet of Adam’s daily routine, like skipping sleep and swallowing back rage during his morning commute. Adam would like to blame his participation on starstruck-syndrome, but really it’s got nothing to do with Lynch being famous and everything to do with Lynch’s never-ending ability to be terrible.

He’s rude and abrasive and treats every conversation like he’s waging a battle. He has the worst opinions on everything, even music ( _N_ _o c’mon ho_ _w did you get anywhere with your career when all you listen to is 90s techno_ _?_ ** **i’**** ** **m the artist here**** ** **,**** ** **what i say goes**** ) and Adam is helpless but to challenge him. It’s like car-crash TV. He can’t look away.

He’s still no further forward on figuring out why Lynch was stalking his own fan forum in the first place, or why he thought breaking his silence to send hate mail to a stranger was a good idea (although, possibly, _he’s Ronan Lynch_ is answer enough) or what it is he’s even been doing for the last seven years, but Adam’s getting there. There’s a process to this game of deductions. He’ll have his answers soon enough.

If it’s taking him a while to ask the right questions, well, that’s just because he needs to build up to it first; it’s got nothing to do with how arguing with Lynch makes Adam lose all track of time.

-

“Are you busy?”

 _I’m debating the artistic merits of the Saw franchise with Ronan Lynch_ isn’t something Adam wants to get into, not with Gansey, so he sets his phone down and says, “What’s up?”

“I thought we could talk,” Gansey says. He’s hovering on the fringes of Adam’s bedroom; Adam wishes he would stop walking on eggshells and just come in.

They haven’t been _avoiding_ each other all week, not quite, but they’ve not exactly been socializing either. Adam’s been busy working and fraternizing with the enemy. Gansey’s been busy doing whatever it is Gansey does when he’s not on campus. He had friends over the other night — rowing buddies from New Haven with names even more pretentious than Richard Campbell Gansey the Third — and introductions were had, but Adam hadn’t lingered. He didn’t have anything in common with guys like that and he had no desire to pretend.

Besides, Gansey possesses a revolving door of friends and Adam’s yet to meet any of them twice. It really doesn’t matter if these ones think he's a jerk.

“We’re talking right now,” Adam points out, and Gansey levels him with an unimpressed look.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re something of a smart-ass?”

Lynch did, in fact, tell Adam that just a few hours ago. He’d been twice as rude about it, though.

“Look, if this is about that argument—”

“Oh, certainly not,” Gansey says. “That’s all water under the bridge by now.”

“Is it?”

“It was stupid. We were both being excessively stupid, don’t you think?”

“Right,” Adam nods, “yeah.”

Gansey keeps hovering, but he doesn’t say anything. The situation feels awkward and precarious, like it could topple on them at any moment. What would smooth things over? Telling Gansey about Ronan Lynch? Adam could show Gansey the messages, but then Gansey will want more information. He’ll want to talk to Lynch himself.

And what if Lynch doesn’t want that? What if he stops replying?

No, Adam can’t risk it yet. He needs some more time to see where this absurdity leads.

“So, are we good?” he asks.

“I read your review,” Gansey blurts out.

On second thought, maybe he should show Gansey the messages; _Lynch agrees that the album’s trash_ is one killer of a rebuttal.

“I figured,” Adam says carefully. “Listen, it was petty of me to write it. I was being an asshole.”

“Yes, well, I’ve had it pointed out to me that I was, in no uncertain terms, acting like an ‘insufferable condescending douche,’ so I suppose we’re even.” Gansey smiles ruefully. This has Blue written all over it, although Adam can’t imagine why her and Gansey were talking about him one-on-one. He doesn’t _want_ to imagine.

Adam’s eyes drift over to his cell phone. He doesn’t need to tell Gansey the truth about Lynch, but maybe there’s a better alternative here. A solution that suits everyone…

He takes a deep breath before saying, “You know, I’ve been reading some of the stuff on your forum—”

“Oh, you really don’t have to—”

“—and it got me curious. Who is Ronan, anyway?”

Gansey stares Adam out, like he’s convinced he’s being messed with. When several seconds pass in silence, he raises a brow and asks, “You really want to know?”

“There’s not a lot of info out there. Makes you wonder, right?”

“Well,” and Gansey’s voice takes on that wistful tone he gets whenever he’s waxing poetic about Lynch, “he’s very private. He doesn’t like social media.”

“I don’t like social media. I still have Facebook.”

“Ronan’s not like us. He doesn’t do networking.”

Using Facebook to network is a whole new concept to Adam. He could’ve sworn the point of Facebook was to make yourself bitter while scrolling down the picture-perfect timelines of old classmates you despise.

“What about his family?” Adam asks. “He didn’t just pop out of nowhere with no connections.”

“He has brothers,” Gansey says, completely ignoring the more cynical part of that statement. “They were all homeschooled. His mom’s a piano teacher, I think.”

“What about his dad? You think he’s in the music business?”

Gansey shrugs. For all his talk of being a scholar in all things Ronan Lynch, it’s becoming clear that everything he knows is 90% conjecture versus 10% solid facts. Or maybe _95%_ conjecture versus _5%_ solid facts.

“You met him,” Adam says. “He must have told you something.”

“I was starstruck, Adam — and really, _really_ drunk. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be conducting interviews.” Gansey’s gaze drifts over towards the balcony doors, leaving Adam behind in the apartment as he travels eight years back to DC. “I’ll tell you something, though. I always got the feeling he wasn’t too happy with his circumstances. It never surprised me when he left the spotlight behind.”

Adam thinks that over, measures it against the Ronan Lynch he knows. He can’t decide if the picture lines up.

But that’s not his business. Asking Gansey at all feels like a mistake, too much like prying.

“Anyway, enough about Ronan for one night. I was just getting ready to watch a documentary on the making of Wales,” Gansey says, his voice eager and bright and having left the nostalgia behind. “You’re free to join, if you’d like. I’m always keen to gather your insight.”

It’s a weight off Adam’s shoulders, that proverbial extending of the olive branch. He nods and smiles, and thankfully Gansey smiles back and starts talking about the time he visited Wales during his gap year, and how his historical knowledge of the country feels so much richer having seen the old battle sites himself, and has Adam ever heard about the Battle of Bryn Glas?

Adam gets all the way into the hallway, then thinks better of it; he doubles back to grab his phone.

 ****you’re an uncultured snob, i get it** ** ****  
**** ****we all got our crosses to bear** **

_Uncultured snob is an oxymoron, you know…_

-

Lynch insists democracy’s a sham but had to look up if he was in a red or blue state.

He watches films on ‘hard mode’ by muting the sound and filling in the dialogue himself.

He’s slow to respond because he hates technology and rarely carries his phone around, but that doesn’t keep him from hounding Adam when his own texts go unread.

He’s weirder than anyone Adam’s ever met, and the worst part is only some of it is for show. He really lives like this. It’s really concerning.

Talking to Lynch is easy, is the thing. It’s too easy. Sometimes Adam forgets who Lynch really is.

Lynch hardly seems keen to remind him.

-

Adam goes running with Blue on a Sunday morning midway through the month. It’s a joyless activity that he usually does alone, but Blue insisted she was heading out anyway and wouldn’t it be so much better to exercise as a team? Wouldn’t it be so much more fun if they could catch up along the way?

They make it three quarters of an hour before Blue finally hits out with, “Have you been seeing someone?” and suddenly all becomes clear. He’s been lured into a false sense of security, and now comes the stitch.

“Good one,” Adam says. Or pants, rather. He is _sorely_ out of breath. “Where did you get that from?”

“From a lifetime of observation,” Blue says, sounding just as beaten up.

“We only met three years ago.”

“Are you deflecting because I’m right, or because whatever you’re really up to is ten times worse?”

Adam considers making a sprint for it and leaving Blue behind in the mud, but on second thought he’s not got the energy for that. He slows down, drawing to a standstill.

He waits for Blue to notice he’s stopped running, and in the meantime he catches his breath and tries to think up a good response. How does he explain Ronan Lynch to Blue? Adam can barely explain Ronan Lynch to himself. _I met someone online_ is misleading and feeds right back into Blue’s ridiculous theory about Adam’s love life. _I made a new friend_ is just as bad; he doesn’t know _what_ Ronan Lynch is, but putting him in the same category as Blue and Henry feels distinctly not right. Ronan exists in a category all on his own. He defies categorization altogether.

What does that leave Adam, then? The truth? ‘ _Semi-famous fully-reclusive singer sends overworked cynic hate mail — what happens next will melt your heart?’_

Hard pass on that.

Blue finally stops running and turns around, brows raised. Adam holds a finger up. He runs his hands over his face (horrible — hot and sweaty) and then through his hair (even worse — damp and sweaty) and then takes his time catching up. He wishes Henry were here to provide a distraction, but Henry’s morally opposed to all forms of outdoor exercise on the basis that too much wind will devastate his hair.

“Don’t tell me you’re tired already,” Blue says, as if her whole face isn’t beetroot. “We haven’t hit ten thousand steps yet.”

“I had a long night.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Adam scowls, but it bounces right off her. Something about prolonged exposure lessening its effects, he supposes.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he says, “but I’m not—”

“Oh, don’t try it. I’ve got two different people telling me you’ve been glued to your phone these last two weeks. I _know_ you’re hiding something.”

“How’s things with Gansey?” Adam fires back, and this time it’s Blue’s turn to give the dirty looks.

“That’s not a thing.” Not her turn to own up to her own hypocrisy, apparently. “Anyway, Gansey’s _Gansey_. He owns a different peacoat for every season. You know it would never work.”

“Maybe it’s not working because you spend all your free time grilling him about my texting habits.”

“We were on the phone for hours, of course you came up,” Blue says dismissively. “Also, you can blame Gansey for that. He was worried you’d been texting me about how much you hated him now.” She smiles despite herself and adds, “It was sweet, actually. I mean, sweet that he cares so much, not sweet that he’s an anxious neurotic mess. You need to sort that, by the way.”

Blue and Gansey are at the hours-long phone calls stage? Well, that’s wonderful. Good for them. Adam could not be happier.

“Ugh, stop changing the subject!” Blue snaps. “What is going on with you?”

“It’s—”

“You haven’t been this invested in a text conversation since that time your hiring manager hit you up on LinkedIn. Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”

Adam considers his options. What will be weird enough to make Blue stop meddling, but not so weird it’ll make her ask for more details?

Not the truth, but a variation of it?

Adam sighs and says, “I got into a fight with someone off Gansey’s forum.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

“Why would you _admit_ to something like that? That is so — You know what, forget it. I don’t want to know.”

“Well, you would ask.”

“I asked because I thought you had more sense than that. Clearly I should’ve known better,” Blue says, and Adam would take offense to that if not for the fact that, true to her word, she lets the matter drop.

Adam breathes in and then starts running again. Standing still has only alerted him to how bad his back hurts, and he’s keen to fix that. Keen to turn his brain off and focus, at least for a little while, on putting one foot in front of the other, on feeling the fresh morning air.

The reprieve doesn’t last forever though. Now that the thought’s back in his head, it’s impossible for him to avoid analyzing it. There are too many unanswered questions, too many unknown variables in this baffling puzzle, and all of it needs addressed.

How does Adam explain Ronan Lynch?

What does Lynch want?

What the hell is Lynch’s deal?

-

 _My friend’s been asking about you._ _  
__All good though: I told her you’re an obsessive fanboy taking me to task for shitting on Ronan Lynch’s good name._

****so you lied** **

_Yes?_ _  
__I was under the impression you’d want your secret identity to remain a secret._

****tell who u want** **

_I don’t think she’d believe me anyway._ _  
__It’s not every day a famous singer sends me hate mail._ _  
__Pains me to say it but you’re one of a kind._

****nice** **

_That wasn’t a compliment._ _  
__Can I ask you something?_

****you just did** **

_You need new material, that joke’s getting old_

****yeah yeah what is it jackoff** **

_What made you come out of hiding now?_

****not** ** ****my idea** **

_Whose was it?_

****do you really think my musics shit?** **

_N_ _ever said that._

****liar** **

_I said your new album_ _’s a poor showcase of your talents._

****you said** ** ****i** ** ****m** ** ****cashing in on a dead career** **

_Well_ _you_ _did admit_ _the album_ _’s_ _trash._

****it is** **

_Then what are we_ _fighting_ _about?_

****im not fighting** **

_Ok._

****the fucks ur deal** **

_Nothing._ _  
__Just confused._

****about what** **

_Your whole deal._ _  
__You’re not the one who sent that letter out to Gansey, are you?_

****does it matter** **

_Not to him._ _  
__But I thought we were getting to know each other_

****smartass** **

_So you’ve said._ _  
__Was the album someone else’s idea too?_ _  
__Do you really wanna get back out there?_ _  
__What’s your deal, Lynch?_

_Lynch?_

_-_

Texting Ronan Lynch was an interesting twist in Adam’s routine, an exciting reprieve from reality, but it was always going to be temporary. So Adam’s not shocked, nor disappointed, when three weeks later the spell fades off.

He’s too busy to entertain elusive rock stars, anyway. He’s working overtime at least three nights a week, giving up his Saturday mornings too. One of the senior engineers on his team, Henrik, has been talking about quitting for months now, and Adam knows if he puts his all in and shows up now then he’s in with a good chance at snagging Henrik’s position when he goes. Adam’s not the most experienced but he’s the most committed, the most hard-working, and his CEO, Eleanor, prizes loyalty above all else.

So it’s fine that Ronan Lynch got bored of him. Adam’s too busy to notice, mostly. It’s fine.

If he checks the forum first thing each day like he’s reading the morning news, then that’s fine too. It’s impulse. Sometimes habits are hard to break.

-

Adam grabs dinner at Blue’s and Henry’s (and now Orla’s) three and a half weeks into February. He leaves Gansey behind, much to Henry’s (and possibly Blue’s, and definitely Orla’s) disappointment.

“He said he was busy,” Adam tells them, and conveniently leaves out the part about it being the Ronan Lynch Fan Brigade’s monthly video call. “He had a life before he moved in with me, you know.”

“Well, that’s really put a damper on my evening,” Henry says. “I had my seduction technique planned to a tee.”

Adam wonders how much Henry knows about Gansey and Blue. Not that it would necessarily make a difference; they’ve been known to share boyfriends in the past. Sharing boyfriends is literally how they met, although neither of them found out about that polyamorous arrangement until _way_ later.

In any case, Henry doesn’t look like he’s taking this new conquest too seriously. He’s leaning against the foot of the couch, Xbox controller in hand, dressed in Christmas-themed PJ pants and an old Madonna t-shirt.

“I’m pretty sure Gansey’s straight,” Adam says.

“I believe his bedroom shrine speaks for itself.”

“So what was your big plan? To help him see the light?”

“His plan was to get Gansey alone and tell him about the time he got kidnapped,” Blue says. She’s leaning against the other leg of the couch, holding the second controller, and looks distinctly amused with this whole conversation. “We should count ourselves lucky Gansey bailed.”

“Oh, hush you. Sharing traumas can be a highly charged experience. It’s the gay equivalent to third base.”

Adam rocks back on the balls of his feet. There’s a punchline to be made here — _maybe that’s why I can never land a second date_ — but it’s never been his style, making light of that stuff.

“He has a point, Blue,” Orla chimes in from the only couch in the room. It’s a three-seater but she’s sprawled out vertically, legs taking up every inch of free space. “You remember Nora Dawson’s birthday party in the 10th grade?”

“We had really different high school experiences,” says Blue.

“Oh, whatever. The point is Riley Callaway was there and she got me to read her palm for her, and then she told me all about her mom’s Valium addiction and how her dad was a serial cheater. And then we made out.”

“Impressive,” Henry says, “check you out. Also, you didn’t tell me you swung that way.”

“I go whatever way the cards take me.”

Adam sits down heavily on the floor beside Blue and gestures for the controller before anyone’s attention can turn to him and what he’s been doing all month. And it works for a little while — they wipe the floor with Henry on every game he suggests — but then the Chinese arrives and everyone moves to the kitchen, and with nothing left to focus his energy on Adam feels his mind drifting to his unanswered texts.

February’s been a fruitful month for everyone, turns out. Orla’s oils business is off to a profitable start and she’s also begun offering tarot readings to her clients as a side gig. If everything goes to plan, she’ll be making rent by this time next spring.

Henry has looked inside himself (or rather, absorbed his latest hook-up partner’s rantings on the evils of Silicon Valley) and decided that working for wannabe tech-giants doesn’t sit right with his spirit. He’s decided it’s time to move on, make a change in the world, _find himself_ — he is looking into around-the-world cruises as they speak.

Blue’s finally feeling good about the work she’s doing at this new nonprofit conservation group she started at, and she really thinks Henry should read up on the evils of the cruise industry and consider volunteering with her org instead if positive change is what he’s after. She’s already convinced Gansey to award his efforts to the cause once grad school’s done kicking his ass.

Adam listens and smiles and nods at all the appropriate moments. He’s happy they’ve got stuff going on for them. He’s happy for all of them. He’s happy, and he has nothing of his own to share.

“What about that Ronan Lynch buddy of yours?” Henry asks, and it takes Adam a moment to realize he’s not actually talking about Lynch himself. “Is the war still on?”

“That’s done with,” Adam says, and if he feels the urge to slump his shoulders then that’s his business. “Blue was right, I should’ve had more sense than that.”

Later, when Orla coaxes him into sitting for a tarot card reading ‘on the house,’ Adam figures what the hell and goes along with it. He can keep an open mind, at least this once.

“I’ll do a three card spread for starters,” Orla says, splaying her deck of cards down on the table. They’re all pink and gold, each decorated with elaborate drawings of lovers embraced; most of the cards have nothing to do with lovers embracing. “You know how that works?”

“One for the past, one for the present, one for the future?”

“Exactly.”

Orla starts shuffling the cards at an impossible speed, bangles jingling up and down her arms. Adam watches, impressed.

Then she sets three cards down on the table between them.

Nine of Cups Reversed. Wheel of Fortune. Ace of Cups.

Orla studies the cards for a never-ending minute and then lets out a quiet, “ _Ooh_.” She looks up and meets Adam’s gaze. He’s not sure he likes that look, gleeful and appraising, like she’s just been told a juicy secret and can’t wait to share.

“Am I getting promoted?” Adam asks, mostly joking.

Orla taps the cards with her paisley-painted nails. She takes her time assessing Adam before saying, “You’re at a turning point now. You weren’t content before, but if you ask yourself what you want, if you tap into intuition, you can turn things around.”

“Intuition?”

“Your instinct’s to rationalize everything. That’s not gonna work here.” Orla blinks down at the cards. “If it feels right, go for it. That’s how you’ll make this work with him.”

“I thought psychics didn’t do specifics.”

“This is a special case,” Orla says, and her voice is back to its usual sultry tone rather than the unsettling wise-beyond-her-years tone she was doing before. “My psychic senses are telling me you’re going to _meet someone special_ , Adam _._ ”

Adam tries to picture it but he comes up short. He’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month. _Fear of intimacy_ is what his therapist would say, if Adam had one; he doesn’t have one because, surprise, fear of intimacy. At least he’s self-aware.

Orla looks convinced though, and it’s hard to look at her face without feeling that confidence seep out and affect him by proxy. Maybe their wires got crossed and she read her own future instead. That sure would explain _if it feels right go for it._

“Thanks,” he tells her anyway, and she winks at him before gathering up her cards.

“Just keep what I said in mind, will ya? Because next time we do this, I won’t be handing out freebies.”

“What makes you think there’ll be a next time?”

“You’re a repressed white man going through an identity crisis,” Orla says. “If I can’t make money out of you, I need to rework my business strategy stat.”

-

Gansey’s asleep, or least trying to sleep, by the time Adam gets home. Adam tries not to make too much noise as he locks the door behind him.

It’s a nice apartment, the nicest place Adam’s ever lived. He has a room that’s twice the size of his last one, with its own little balcony attached, and the view outside is inspiring rather than bleak. The neighbours smile rather than turn away when Adam runs into them in the hall. He hasn’t heard a gunshot in months. And then there’s Gansey, perhaps the best addition of all, because surely someone born into wealth wouldn’t choose to live here if he felt it was lacking in any substantial way.

Moving here signaled a great change in Adam’s life, just like the used sports car he splurged on at the first opportunity and the tailored suits he bought despite his job’s informal dress code. They were all things he wantedbut could get by without. They were all things he’d earned. They were material markers of success that proved he’d made it.

The shine wore off a lot quicker than expected.

All that means is he’s still got further to go. A sought after promotion, a new job title promising greater opportunities, then the leap to a better company. The big leagues, tech giants, Silicon Valley mainstays. There are always newer dizzying heights to climb. The rent here isn’t cheap, after all.

Everything is on track and going exactly to plan. What does it matter if Orla’s cards are right and he’s discontent? Contentment is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, an elusive dream at best. In the meantime, Adam knows that things could always be so much worse.

He pulls his phone out once he’s in bed and tries to focus on the ebook he’s been reading, but his restless mind wanders down a distressingly familiar path instead.

 _You’re better than this_ , he reminds himself. _You don’t care either way._

But Adam’s not better than this. He gives up pretending and checks the forum.

He had no new messages this morning — there’s been none for well over a week — but someone must be listening tonight, because the red alert button’s there right now. Adam’s stomach gives a nervous jolt.

Is Ronan messing with him? Screwing around with Adam for the hell of it?

It doesn’t matter because Adam doesn’t care. This is mindless entertainment for him; he can take it or leave it.

He opens the chat box.

 ****hey** ** ****  
**** ****so guess i screwed this up. told you i hate texting** ** ****  
**** ****but fuck man you asked what my deal is. the hell was i meant to say to that** ** ****  
**** ****im a loser that quit singing to go shack up on a farm? im the family fuckup? i haven’t written shit in 7 years?** ** ****  
**** ****you see how that sounds?** **

Adam frowns as he rereads the messages. This isn’t at all what he expected, or what he’d been gunning for. What _had_ he been gunning for? Why did he want Ronan’s truth at all?

 _At least you’re honest about it._ _  
__But for what it’s worth I don’t think you’re a loser._ _  
__Not for this stuff, anyway. You’re a definite loser for hating on the Kinks._

****fuck you and your old man music taste** **

_That’s what I thought you’d say, you disgrace._ _  
__Hey just so we’re clear…I’m not so put together either._

****did you kill someone** **

_Why is that the first thing your mind leaps to?_

****you’re all uptight and shit** ** ****  
**** ****wouldn’t put anything past you** **

_Thanks for the vote of confidence, great to know my mental soundness is coming across through text._

****whats your fuckin deal then** ** ****  
**** ****apart from being a loser** **

Adam stares at the phone for a long while. He thinks of his job, his friends, his quiet apartment and quiet life. The envy he’s always repressing, the tiredness that’s always apparent, the hunger that’s forever driving him to seek out more than what he has. The gaping pit in his stomach that’s never satisfied.

Is it a stretch to think that someone like Ronan could understand? Someone who’s already climbed to the highest peak and found the view up there didn’t measure up?

What does Adam have to lose here, either way?

 _I thought I knew what I wanted,_ he types out _, but I’m starting to think I’ve misjudged._ _  
_ _You ever look at everyone else and wonder what it is they know about life that you don’t?_ _  
_ _What have they got that you’re missing?_

He drifts off before Ronan can reply, but then he checks his phone the next morning and _there it is_ , right there, absolution in a seven-word text:

 ****yeah i get that** ** ****  
**** ****all the time** **

Adam’s pulse picks up. It takes all his will power to freshen up and grab some breakfast before heading back to the room and replying:

_Guess my deal’s the same as yours, then._

****you married** **

_No._

****engaged** **

_Furthest thing from it._

****well i got nothing man** ** ****  
**** ****move away, blow ur savings on a pig farm** ** ****  
**** ****whats keeping you there** **

_I have a life here._

****that you hate** **

_That’s an exaggeration._ _  
__Anyway, Moving away and facing the same thing somewhere new doesn’t sound like a solution._

 ****sure it is** ** ****  
**** ****new scenery** **

_How’s that working for you?_

****i didn’t go anywhere new** ** ****  
**** ****moved back to the family farm** **

_You should follow your own advice_

****not that simple** **

_No?_ _  
__What’s keeping you there?_

 ****lotta shit** ** ****  
**** ****literal shit** ** ****  
**** ****cow shit** **

Adam smiles. He feels off-kilter and unsteady on his feet, like he’s shifting through the hazy remnants of a dream rather than his usual gray-scaled reality. Anything could happen next.

He tries to picture Ronan on his farm shoveling cow shit, but the image in his head is all wrong. He’s basing it off the Ronan from Gansey’s photograph, the Ronan that graces Gansey’s walls. He doesn’t know what _this_ Ronan looks like. Different than he did at nineteen, obviously.

There’s so much about Ronan that’s a mystery to Adam, and is it so crazy to want to understand? That’s why the forum exists, after all, because Ronan is elusive and larger than life. Because he draws people in.

 _My real name’s Adam btw._ _  
__Adam Parrish._

****cool cool** **

Adam’s fingers hover over the screen. _If it feels right go for it_ , he tells himself, and then he dives in.

 _I don’t want to be presumptuous but since you hate texting: how about phone calls?_ _  
__If not, no worries._ _  
__If so, I can give you my number?_ _  
__I’m on the west coast though, mind the time difference._

****got an iphone** **

_Yep, that is a phone that’s capable of storing contacts._

****fuck you** ** ****  
**** ****i mean for facetime and shit. have you got iphone?** **

_I do._ _  
__So you want my number?_

****yeah yeah lets see it** **

A thrill goes through Adam as he sends the text, as he waits for a response. What is he doing, what is he _thinking_ , what is he hoping to achieve?

What does any of it matter? He’s doing what he wants.

Then his phone lights up with an unknown number, and all at once reality sets in. He’s going to see Ronan Lynch. Ronan’s going to see him, _oh shit_. Why didn’t he make the bed? Why didn’t Ronan give him some _warning_?

Adam scrambles onto the veranda. Except no, that won’t do, it’s too bright outside. He rushes back inside, looks around. The bookcase? Should he sit by the bookcase? Or beside the sliding door, with all his plants in view?

He’s going to miss the call, damn it. Adam slumps down against his plain white wall and hits the answer button.

And then Ronan’s face comes into view, and Adam almost drops the phone.

“Uh, hey,” says Ronan, all casual.

There are enough similarities between Ronan at nineteen and Ronan at twenty-seven for one to place them as the same person. He’s got the same hair for starters, dark brown and buzzed close to the scalp. He’s got the same sense of style too, wearing a black t-shirt and what looks like loose-fitted ripped jeans. He’s got the same sharp, defined jaw and the same Roman nose and the same hard-edged exterior that says _WARNING: APPROACH WITH CAUTION._

He’s also toned and broad-shouldered and sporting a half sleeve of intriguing tats that Adam can’t look away from, vines stretching all the way up to the back of his neck.

 _Shit_. He’s hot. Scary hot, which is sadly Adam’s type.

“Hey,” says Adam, all casual.

This is fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest of the story won't be as heavy on the texting, I promise! Also I know Ronan's not one for texting in canon but I figured if anything's likely to make him pick up his phone it's a petty online feud, right?
> 
> song for this chapter is [waterloo sunset - the kinks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_MqfF0WBsU)


	3. march

February ends with still no word of when Ronan’s album is dropping.

“He could be doing a surprise release,” Gansey insists enthusiastically to the Fan Brigade over Skype. “We’re in the age of streaming, anything’s possible. Plenty of artists go that route nowadays.”

“Ah, like Beyonce!” one fan responds.

“Radiohead did it first,” says another.

“Don’t you think shock releases have grown stale?” suggests one woman. “It’s becoming the norm, practically. I’d expect more creativity out of Ronan.”

“It’s disappointing,” agrees another man. “What’s next, collaborations with pop stars?”

Adam quietly slips out the room. Eviscerating Ronan had felt like a worthy cause when he was the one doing it, but he’s got no patience to listen to these other jerks’ smug diatribes. What do they know, anyway?

Later that week, on the phone with Ronan, Adam says, “You know, I always thought the whole point of indie labels was greater creative control.”

“I’ve got creative control,” Ronan replies. He’s lounging on a couch that’s the same brown leather as the bands around his wrist, a wall of windows framed with thick dark wood behind him. Moonlight gleams through them and casts his savagely handsome face into shadows.

It’s been nearly two weeks since they started Facetiming and Adam is no longer affected by the sight of that handsome face. Or, okay, he’s a _little_ affected, but he’s handling it. Ronan is still Ronan, terrible and absurd. Good looks aren’t everything.

“So that’s why you’re holding off on releasing the album,” Adam says, “because you’re just _so proud_ of it.”

“I’m building suspense, shithead.”

“There’s only one person that’s full of shit here and it’s not me.”

“C’mon, Parrish, when have I ever lied to you?”

Adam gives it some thought but no examples spring to mind. There was that one time Ronan kept an argument going for _three nights in a row_ about how Armageddon is cinema at its finest, but the sad thing is, Adam’s sure he wasn’t kidding.

“You already told me you think the album’s trash,” he points out.

“It’s my trash, I can still be proud of it.”

“But you’re not.”

Ronan raises a brow. His face says, _I dare you to tell me what I’m thinking,_ and who would Adam be if he backed down now?

“You’re a perfectionist.” _Like me_. “You care too much about your art to release a bad album on purpose.”

It sounds stupid once he’s said it, presumptuous and all wrong. God, he’s beginning to sound like one of Gansey’s forum dwellers. _Ronan has too much integrity for that!_

But he knows it’s true. Ronan’s a lot of things — an asshole, a mystery, a professional pain in the ass — but he’s not a sell-out. And didn’t he admit as much last week, when he told Adam he hadn’t written any new material in seven years? This music couldn’t have been his idea.

When Adam focuses back on the camera he finds Ronan staring right at him, free arm now slung across the back of the couch. His gaze is contemplative, assessing, and something about it gets beneath Adam’s skin, makes the air in the room feel stifling.

Adam breathes in through his nose. Ronan is terrible and absurd and can’t answer a question straight. Ronan is a semi-famous hermit living on the other side of the country. Ronan is an _impossibility._

Adam’s awful lizard brain says, _biceps._

“It’s this contract,” Ronan says, finally breaking the silence. “I’m supposed to give them two albums. Stupid fuckers have been getting on my ass about it for years.”

“So what, they’re making you record somebody else’s music?”

“They’re my songs.”

“Lynch—”

“I’m serious. I wrote every one of them. Just…a while ago.” His face twists into a sneer. “They told me I had until the end of this year to give them a second album or they’d be free to take legal action.”

“So you recorded your old music?”

“Didn’t have much choice, did I? They’d rather have a _sonically incohesive_ album than no album.”

Adam frowns. He doesn’t much like hearing his own arguments about the quality of Ronan’s music spat back at him, especially not now.

“Why don’t you just write something new?” he says.

“Good one, Einstein. You think I haven’t tried?”

“What’s the problem? Nothing to talk about?”

“Nothing I wanna talk about. I like keeping my shit private.” Ronan breaks eye contact, giving Adam the chance to breathe deeply. He fidgets with the hem of his PJ shirt, thoughts racing to process Ronan’s situation. There’s no good answer Adam can give though; he learned a long time ago to numb himself to disappointment, and now his response to hardship of any flavour is to keep soldiering through it without thinking about how much it hurts.

So he says, “Private, huh? You ever considered you might be in the wrong business?” and Ronan laughs sharply and calls him a bastard. It feels surprisingly like a compliment, coming from him.

There’s a yelp off-screen, and Ronan turns to someone and says, “Hey buddy, c’mere.” He pats at the cushion next to him. It takes Adam a good few seconds to realize he’s talking to an animal, not a person.

The camera blurs in and out of focus. When Ronan finally adjusts it he’s not alone anymore; there’s a dog lying curled up on the couch beside him, a black greyhound with gentle brown eyes. Ronan claps its head and the dog nuzzles into the touch. Adam’s heart seizes up in his chest.

“You have pets?” he asks.

“Two dogs and a cat,” says Ronan. “This is Jackhammer.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Knock the attitude, wise-ass. You’ll give him a complex.”

“You named him after a power tool,” Adam says dryly. “I think that ship has sailed.”

Jackhammer grunts, which Adam takes to mean _no arguing, sleepy time only._ He really is adorable with those big eyes of his, the type of dog Adam’s always longed for himself. But it wouldn’t be sensible, adopting one of his own — he works too much, and none of his leases have ever allowed for pets.

Ronan runs his hand up and down Jackhammer’s fur, almost absentmindedly, as he says, “He used to be a race dog till he broke his leg. They were gonna put him down. How screwed up is that?”

Adam considers all the ways that adoption might have played out. He knows he’s smiling when he says, “Looks like it worked out all right.”

“Yeah, silver linings, I guess.” And there’s a fond smile on Ronan’s face now, softer than anything Adam’s ever seen from him before.

 _You ever look at everyone else and wonder what it is they know about life that you don’t?_ Adam had asked him, and Ronan said he got it, but right now he doesn’t look like he thinks anything’s missing. He looks calm and utterly content, and Adam can’t find it in himself to envy Ronan his happiness. He watches the moonlight play off Ronan’s face, that jittery feeling taking him over head to toe.

This is fine. So what if Ronan rescues mistreated dogs and gives them loving homes and looks at them like they’re his whole world? He also gives them ridiculous names that are sure to get them bullied out of the dog park. Life has a way of balancing the scales.

They talk some more, conversation coming naturally, before tiredness creeps in and Adam realizes it’s much later than he expected. He always loses track of time when he’s talking to Ronan. He could interrogate why that is, but he’s not sure he’ll like the answer.

“I gotta go,” he says.

“Already?”

“Your biological clock needs fixing. Isn’t it 2 a.m. where you are?”

Ronan shrugs. His face says, _yeah, so?_

“Well, I need to sleep. I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Call in sick.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? You can’t stand the place.”

Adam frowns. He never told Ronan that. Is he really so obvious?

“I don’t call in sick when I’m really sick, I’m not about to call in sick for nothing,” he says, shaking off how unnerved he feels. “Besides, we have this team-building retreat tomorrow. I can’t miss it.”

“Team-building,” Ronan says flatly.

“Whatever you’re thinking of, trust me, it’s worse.”

“I’m thinking of Final Destination 5.”

“That was a very high bar and you _still_ managed to cross it, what the hell.”

“Fuck you, those films are works of art,” he says with a savage grin. “Don’t knock them till you’ve seen them.”

“I’ve seen the one with the roller-coaster.”

“That’s Final Destination 3. You haven’t seen shit till you’ve seen the laser eye surgery scene in Final Destination _5_. Her eyeball gets—”

“Yeah, I’m hanging up now.”

“Good luck at your corporate circle jerk,” Ronan says in lieu of goodbye. “Tell your bus driver to avoid all bridges.”

Adam ends the call and leans back, head hitting the pillows. He wants to call Ronan again and say goodbye for real. He wants to watch Ronan’s awful horror movies just so he has the context to make fun of him. He wants to scream into the pillow until these awful unruly feelings go away.

Adam shuts his eyes and reminds himself, _impossibility_.

He’s never been more grateful that Gansey’s room is on the other side of the apartment.

-

The team-building event is just as dreadful as Adam’s expecting, a whole day of forced extroversion in a fun group setting, as if anything can ever be fun when you’re being supervised by the jerks that control your ability to eat and pay rent.

It’s pointless if you ask Adam — being forced into a citywide scavenger hunt doesn’t make him appreciate his workmates or valuetheir contributions to the team, it makes him want to commit homicide.

The only plus side is that he ends up in the same group as Henry, the two of them sorted together alongside staff from the marketing and software and HR departments and some mid-tier recruitment manager that they’ve never had reason to meet, never mind speak to. The downside to all of this is that Henry actually _enjoys_ making small-talk with strangers. He wears his ‘Hello, my name is Henry’ badge with pride and participates in the challenges with gusto, and by the end of the first hour he’s saved at least half a dozen new numbers to his phone.

Adam has made no such progress today. The closest he’s come to camaraderie is sharing eyerolls with Sarah from HR every time Tony from marketing mistakes effective leadership for being able to yell the loudest.

“Well I won’t claim to speak for everyone, but this is the most fun I have had at the office since joining the office,” Henry declares as their group makes it back onto the bus hours later. “They should make this a weekly event. Oh! With after-party drinks on a tab.”

“You really don’t speak for everyone, good job on the self-awareness,” Adam says as he shoots off an SOS text to Ronan.

Ronan gets back to him seconds later, which is a miraculous feat for him given that it’s barely past two. If Adam didn’t know better, he’d assume Ronan was based somewhere in Russia; the hours he keeps should not be possible for anyone living in his timezone.

****got some sad news for you man** ** ****  
** ** ****you work for sadists** **

_In corporate culture we call that a given._

****jesus weeps** ** ****  
** ** ****im playing you a song on my tiny violin** **

_Can you actually play the violin?_

****im an artist parrish** **

_Surprisingly enough that doesn’t answer the question._

“At our startup, _every_ Friday will be a team-building Friday.” Henry is suddenly _right there_ in Adam’s personal space, leaning against his shoulder.

Adam doesn’t panic and throw his phone out the bus window, but it’s a close call. He says, “Our startup?” as he discreetly looks at the screen.

****i can play the basics** ** ****  
** ** ****its more my dads thing, he loved orchestras** ** ****  
** ** ****fuck that** **

“All optional, of course,” Henry continues, oblivious. Adam quickly types out a reply — _What’s the problem? Does it not fit your edgy middle school image? —_ and then tunes back into the conversation.“Antisocial personnel such as yourself will be free to opt out without fearing any consequences.”

“Can we backtrack to where you said our startup? I feel like that needs to be addressed.”

“It came to me in a vision last night,” Henry says. “With your intelligence and pragmatism and my roguish good looks and well of ideas, I have no doubt that we could build something incredible! Something to rival the likes of Apple.”

“I thought working in Silicon Valley didn’t sit right with your spirit?”

“Working for _the Man_ does not sit right with my spirit. Being a lowly office drone does not sit right with my spirit. But being my own boss? That is a concept I can get behind.”

“You know what concepts I can get behind? Pensions. Health insurance. Reliable nine-to-fives.”

“You’re thinking too small, Parrish. Where is that ruthless ambition I admire so much? And when was the last time you clocked out at five, anyway?”

Adam rolls his eyes and says, “I got used to having job security, sue me.”

“You got used to being shackled, more like.”

He checks his phone again and almost laughs at the irony.

****too many rules** ** ****  
** ** ****i don’t need some shitstack hack telling me what to do** **

_??_ _  
_ _Oh my god wait, do you mean the conductor?_ _  
_ _You have a problem with conductors?_

****some bigshot waves his magic stick around and we’re all supposed to listen?** ** ****  
** ** ****what kind of weird ass bdsm shit is that** ** ****  
** ** ****people should do whatever the fuck they want, its in the constitution** **

_I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure that’s not how orchestras work._ _  
_ _Or how BDSM works._ _  
_ _Or how the Constitution works._ _  
_ _Genuine question, how do you function in society?_

****i moved offgrid** **

Adam snorts out loud.

“What’s so funny?” Henry asks. “Do you think I’m not serious? Because I am _deadly_ serious. Just say the words and I am ready to bankroll. We could create something truly radical — say, a device that revolutionizes modern healthcare!”

“You know Theranos was a cautionary tale and not a business model worth replicating, don’t you?”

“You, my friend, are a rotten cynic.”

Adam texts back, _Oh really?_

****really really** ** ****  
** ** ****im like one of those socialist hippie boneheads** ** ****  
** ** ****living off the earth** **

_On your million dollar farm?_

****hearsay** ** ****  
** ** ****its worth 20 mil** **

_Obscene, you disgust me._

****sure about that?** ** ****  
** ** ****ur the one who begged for my number** **

Adam stares at the message blankly. It sounds an awful lot like flirting, but he can’t parse the tone. Is it unintentional flirting? Or that weird play flirting that straight men do for reasons that Adam still can’t wrap his head around. _I’m so straight I can out-gay any gay because that’s how secure in my straightness I am!_

Or it could be mean-spirited flirting. _I know your secret and I think it’s funny_ flirting.

“And to think, I have been so generous as to offer you the chance to be part of this unique business opportunity, and _this_ is how you repay me — by ignoring me for some words on a screen,” Henry bemoans, startling Adam out of his mental crisis. He locks the phone and shoves it in his pocket. “What has gotten into you today? Haven’t we been friends for long enough?”

“The fact that we’ve been friends for so long is exactly why I don’t want to go into business with you,” Adam says. “You’d get bored within a week.”

“Good god, the slights never end! If you cared about rectifying this relationship at all, you would tell me who it is you’ve been talking to in my stead.”

Tell him? Really?

But then again…Adam considers Ronan’s ambiguous texts. If anyone would know what to do, how best to respond, it’s Henry. He knows how to flirt, knows how to tell when other people are flirting, how to tell what that flirting _means_. He might be able to help shed some light—

Adam shakes the thought away. Who is he _kidding_? He doesn’t need Henry to deal with Ronan Lynch. He won’t be manipulated that easily.

Adam stares at Henry disdainfully. Henry holds Adam’s gaze, unflinching.

“You can’t guilt-trip me into doing what you want,” Adam says, breaking first.

“I can and I will,” Henry says. “I only regret that I have to resort to dirty tactics in the first place! Here I was, assuming you would trust me of your own free will.”

“It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of privacy.”

“We shall see about that,” Henry insists, and Adam scoffs and leans his head against the seat and tries to think about anything else besides Ronan Lynch, Schrödinger’s flirt.

And it works for a little while, as the bus pulls up at some kind of park and everyone is forced to part ways with their phones. Adam drops his in the box with only a minimal sense of anxiety. He hasn’t replied but it’s fine, Ronan’s not going to read into it.

Ronan was just messing with him, surely. He probably didn’t consider the implications of his words at all.

Their group is shuffled along by the events coordinators into a giant field where some of the other staff are already congregated. Henry darts off to chat with one of the engineers, leaving Adam to linger around and make small-talk with the rest of their group.

Probably Ronan was messing with him. Probably Adam should’ve sent back an abrasive reply so they could both move on, end of story.

Goddamn. He’s overthinking this.

“What we’re looking to do here today is build a sense of trust within our team,” Eleanor, the company CEO, says enthusiastically once all the workforce is present. There’s a distinct lack of warmth to her smile; Adam can’t think of anyone he trusts less. “Thanks to everybody’s hard work and contributions, we were able to raise a total of eight and a half million dollars at our last bi-annual funding drive! But I believe that if we band together now, we can double those figures by July.”

If Adam had his phone right now, he could fix this before his silence becomes too damning. Why did he allows the powers that be to take it from him? Ronan wouldn’t have done that. He’d have insisted his cow stamped on it the night before, and it’d have worked too, because no one besides trained hitmen and maladjusted freaks like Adam are going to risk their lives challenging him on—

“Does everyone know what a trust fall is?”

Wait, what?Did Adam hear that right?

Twenty minutes later, Adam is standing on the podium with his arms crossed over his chest, his teammates waiting on the ground behind him.

“C’mon, Adam, jump already,” Tony from marketing shouts, and Adam stares into the creeping treeline with a growing sense of horror. Maybe Ronan was right. Maybe it’s not too late for Adam to leave his life behind and start an off-grid pig farm. It can’t be worse than this, being forced to put his faith in near-strangers and trust them to break his fall.

“Have no fear, Parrishman,” Henry insists. “I’ve got this.”

Adam shuts his eyes and counts down from five. He stalls on one, then resolves to count down from _ten_ this time. No big deal. He can do this.

He reaches one and then lets himself slip off the podium, eyes crewed shut. He has no control in this situation and he hates it. He hates it, hates it, _hates_ —

His back connects with several pairs of arms, each one blocking his fall. When he opens his eyes, he sees Henry hovering over him and grinning madly.

“See? Not so bad, was it?” says Tony from marketing with a condescending smile.

Adam opens his mouth, but all of a sudden his head’s tipping backwards and he is _falling_. His arms windmill around to catch himself, as half his teammates scramble to keep him upright.

“My bad,” Henry says, sounding gleefully smug. “It would appear that Adam cannot trust me after all!”

-

“Fine, you win,” Adam says once they’re back on the bus, “but this stays between you and me. You can’t tell Gansey under any circumstances, got it?”

“Tell Gansey, got it.”

“Cheng.”

“Okay, okay,” Henry holds his hands up in surrender, “I understand the terms of the contract.”

So Adam tells him, “I’ve been talking to Ronan Lynch,” and watches the way Henry’s eyes bug out of their sockets.

“You mean Gansey’s—”

“Yes.”

“And he doesn’t—”

“No.”

“And this is because—”

“Of that review, yes.” Adam sighs. He can feel a tension headache coming on, but that might just be the whiplash. He’s going to get Henry back for that the minute he’s least expecting it. “I’m gonna regret telling you about this, aren’t I?”

“Oh, not at all,” Henry says with a frightening gleam in his eye. “Now let me see these sacred texts.”

-

Adam does not show Henry the texts, but he does explain his current predicament in as vague terms as possible (i.e. _what do I say if, theoretically, he says something that sounds like flirting but obviously isn’t flirting?_ )

“Run with it, obviously,” Henry says, which is the furthest thing from helpful. God, why did Adam think asking him was a good idea?

After much back and forth debate — and one failed attempt by Henry to snatch the phone out of Adam’s hands — Adam sends Ronan back a simple, _You caught me, I’m so impressed by generational wealth,_ and breathes deeply.

There, problem solved. They’re back on neutral ground.

“I truly cannot believe you stole Gansey’s man,” Henry says, “you conniving homewrecker, you.”

“This is why I don’t tell you anything,” Adam says, and promptly wishes for a Final Destination style death.

-

With Henry now in the loop about the Ronan Lynch Situation, Adam’s double life settles down considerably. He feels less like he’s hiding a giant secret from everyone he cares about, more like he’s keeping _some_ of the people he cares about on a need to know basis. Sure, Henry’s been on his case about ‘status updates’ every day for the last fortnight, but that’s nothing Adam can’t handle. All things considered, his world has shrunk down to a comfortable state of normalcy.

Well, semi-normalcy.

“What did I tell you, you sonuvabitch, whip the egg whites—”

“Separately, I get it. You’re starting to sound like a broken record there, Lynch.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d quit cutting corners and follow my goddamn instructions.”

Adam looks down at the mixing bowl before him, with both the egg yolk and the egg white cracked together inside. He _had_ been cutting corners, but how does Ronan know? The phone’s propped up against the microwave two feet away; Adam and his egg whites aren’t even in the frame.

“It’s more efficient this way,” Adam says, partly because it’s true, mostly because he likes how Ronan sounds when he gets fired up about something. There’s something musical about it, the way he swears up a storm, stringing curses together like black-painted poetry.

Sure enough, Ronan does just that. Adam smiles into the mixing bowl.

The video calls are becoming a near daily thing, both of them falling into this pattern as easily as they’d fallen into the old one. Ronan says he prefers it to texting, prefers being able to see Adam being a shitbag for himself. Adam gets it; Ronan’s all about actions and gestures and meaningful looks, the kind of stuff that doesn’t translate over text. He is so much _more_ on camera, wholly present and tuned into the physical world in a way that Adam both admires and envies in equal measure.

“Jesus Mary, Parrish. You want this cake to be edible or not?”

“Fine. I’ll whip them separately.” Adam rummages around in the cupboards for another bowl and this time follows Ronan instructions. Tries to, at least. The end result is…questionable.

“You fucked it up, didn’t you?”

“Have some faith.”

“Big ask from the man who can’t crack an egg.”

“I can crack an egg just fine.”

“Show me.”

“I’m not wasting any more eggs.”

“The prosecution rests its case, Your Honor.”

“Motion to dismiss. The prosecution has built its case on circumstantial evidence that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.”

“Motion not granted. Suck it up, loser.”

Adam stifles a laugh and says, “You can’t be the prosecutor and the judge.”

Ronan says, “I’m not the judge. Bonesaw’s the judge and she says you’re full of shit.”

Bonesaw, AKA Ronan’s cat, meows in either agreement or disagreement. Adam can’t prevent the laugh that comes out this time. He’s just grateful he’s got his back to the screen.

“This is on you, you know,” he says. “You’re a terrible teacher.”

“You’re a shitty student,” Ronan fires back. “My niece does better in the kitchen and she’s barely out of diapers.”

“You’re an uncle?”

He wonders what Ronan is like with kids. Probably similar to how he is with his pets, kind and fond and gruffly affectionate. The cool funny uncle that buys the best gifts and lets you away with the most shit. The one that everybody favors, because they know his love truly comes without condition—

“Stop trying to distract me, you goddamn nightmare. Whip the egg whites.”

Adam frowns and turns his focus back to the task before him.

Mixing bowl. Whisk. He’s got this. He is making a cake for Orla’s birthday and everything is fine, maddening impossible teachers notwithstanding.

-

When Adam visits Orla the following afternoon and is greeted with, “So I heard about your sexy situation,” he decides that no, everything is not fine.

“Where’s Henry?” Adam asks, calm as he can manage.

Orla says, “How would I know?” and takes the cake tin out of Adam’s hands. She lifts the lid and grins. “Red velvet?”

“Your favourite, right?”

She nods. “You know, the last time someone made me a red velvet cake, it’s because she was fiercely in love with me.”

“Ah.”

“I couldn’t reciprocate, because I don’t believe in the concept of true love. We’re animals. We make love in the bushes.”

“That doesn’t sound practical,” Adam says. “Or safe.”

“Neither is marriage,” Orla says, and lets him inside.

He hangs up his coat as Orla strolls into the kitchen, her vintage clogs clacking against the wooden floors. If Henry’s here then he’s doing a good job at keeping quiet, which might be for the best. Adam is going to kill him the next time he sees him.

“Would you like some tea?” Orla calls from the other room. “My mom sent us a care package full of unique new flavors.”

“Sure,” he says. “Is Blue around?”

“You just missed her. She went on a run.”

Adam tells himself he’s not relieved to hear that. He tells himself he is not avoiding her, certainly not because of Ronan Lynch. He tells himself that the feeling weighing him down is not guilt.

Orla steps through into the living room minutes later carrying two plates of red velvet cake and a mug of steaming tea. She sets Adam’s tea and cake slice down on the table and then settles down on the couch with her own.

“Oh my god, this is _heaven sent_ ,” she says between mouthfuls. “Your man is a god.”

“He showed me how to make it, he didn’t make it himself,” Adam says. “How did you know about that, anyway?”

“I’m a psychic, Adam. My job is to know things.”

Adam bites into the cake and decides that Orla might have a point. He reaches for the tea to wash it down, but that was a bad call; it tastes like how he imagines dirty dishwater must taste.

“Do you like it?” Orla asks. “It’s medicinal.”

“It’s great,” Adam says, grimacing. He takes another more sip to be polite.

“So, about Ronan—”

“Yeah, we’re not doing this.”

“You’re in the DMs of a man who’s moderately famous, and you want us to ignore it?”

“DMs?”

“Oh, you poor lost cause,” Orla says. “Henry wasn’t kidding about you, was he?”

Adam could ask, but he’s not sure he wants an answer. All he knows is Henry Cheng is a dead man walking and that grave’s getting deeper with each passing minute.

“Does Blue know about this too?” he asks.

“Don’t look at me, it’s not like _I’ve_ told her. She doesn’t have it in her to appreciate this, anyway. Her type is morally righteous men in sweaters.”

And it looks like that’s his cue to leave. Adam dusts his cake off and then stands up. “Thanks for the tea, Orla.”

“Oh, come on!” She follows him all the way into the hallway, standing guard as he pulls on his coat. “You can’t horde that gossip goldmine forever, Adam. Sooner or later you’ll need to dish.” 

“Happy early birthday,” he says. “Tell Henry I stopped by.”

-

Blue stops by for an impromptu visit the following Tuesday night, which Adam can only assume has more to do with Gansey than it does with him. Impromptu visits are not his and Blue’s thing.

“So, I tried that cake you made Orla,” she says, the minute she’s got him alone. “It was nice! Not like you to bake.”

“Orla said she likes red velvet,” Adam says. “I thought it’d be a nice surprise.”

“Huh.”

“I didn’t know what else to get her.”

“Heh.”

“You didn’t give me any hints.”

“Hah.”

“Can you stop doing that?”

“I’m processing,” Blue says with a look of faux-innocence that means she knows exactly how annoying she’s being and it’s on purpose. “I mean, this here…this is a lot.”

Adam can’t think of what to say to that. Luckily, he’s saved by Gansey.

“I found it! It was in the same box as my mother’s embroidered dishcloths.”

“Nice,” Blue says brightly. “I was just asking Adam about his—”

“What did you find?”Adam asks.

“My tape collection,” Gansey says. “I have this wonderful documentary on the Terra Nova Expedition that I feared was lost forever.”

“We have a video player in the apartment?”

“Very retro of you,” Blue says. “I like it.”

Gansey smiles at her like she hung the sun, the moon and the stars. It’s possible that he likes Blue even more than he likes Ronan, which is saying something.

“So, what do you say? Still up for watching?” Gansey asks her, and Adam makes a beeline for it before he’s coaxed into third wheeling.

He reads a few more chapters of his book, some drawn-out epic involving family drama and generational trauma, before giving in and checking his phone. There are no new messages, but he wasn’t expecting any. They talked on the phone last night.

Adam scrolls mindlessly through their text thread anyway, rereading scraps of past conversations, as if he doesn’t have each of them committed to memory by now.

It scares him, how rapidly he’s grown attached. How intently he hangs onto Ronan’s words. He’s sure it can’t be normal to feel this way, like a far-flung moon caught in the orbit of a grander planet, like everything begins and ends with one name on his tongue.

_What will Ronan think about this? What will he say to this? What is he doing right now?_

_Is he thinking about me now? Does he think about me at all?_

If this is normal then Adam doesn’t want it. He doesn’t like how out of control he feels, one wrong slip between standing on the podium and meeting a bone-crushing fall.

It’s so much easier, staying detached.

There’s a knock on his bedroom door. Seconds later, Blue peeks her head inside. “Mind if I come in?”

Adam curls his feet up underneath him to make room for her on the bed. Blue smiles and sits down.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you all month,” she says.

He doesn’t feel guilty, at least not guilty enough to admit he’s done something wrong. He’s been an unwitting witness to all of Gansey’s flirtations, after all. He’s picked up on the late night phone calls and late night drives, heard the inside joke about pygmy tyrants and resolved not to ask. He knows Blue’s been busy too.

Still. He can’t quite look at her.

“You know me,” he says vaguely. “Always chasing something.”

“Huh.”

“Don’t think I won’t throw this pillow at you.”

“Do people actually pillow fight for real? I always thought that was one of those things that only happens in movies,” Blue says.

“I thought it was a sleepover thing.”

“I’ve never been to a sleepover,” she admits. “I was the weirdo in high school that never got invited to parties.”

“You’re still the weirdo now,” Adam jokes, because it’s a lot easier than saying, _me too. I made my first friend when I was twenty-one._

That’s the thing with him and Blue — telling her things always feels like giving pieces of himself away, to be turned over and analyzed and _processed_. She likes knowing the hows and whys of what people are feeling, is never content to leave a stone unturned. She doesn’t do repression.

It hadn’t taken long after Henry introduced them to each other for Blue to start asking questions — about Adam’s childhood, about his family, about the home that was never a home at all but a place made for leaving. She’s always asking questions but answering them means looking deep inside himself, and that’s not something Adam’s comfortable with doing. He’s never prepared for what he’ll find.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with Gansey?” he says.

“If I was going to date Gansey, I wouldn’t do it with you next door.”

“Why not? I’d be happy to chaperone.”

Blue scowls in response, just like Adam knew she would. Whatever it is she’s holding back on asking him about is certain to come out now.

“You know just for that, I’m not gonna build up to what I came here to talk about,” she says, like clockwork. “Henry told me about your situation.”

Henry Cheng is dead to him.

“In his defence, he said you only specified that he shouldn’t tell _Gansey_.”

“Not telling you was implied.”

“And why is that?” Blue asks, suddenly defensive. “Do you not trust me? You told Orla!”

“No, Henry told Orla.”

“No, Orla heard through the ‘psychic grapevine’ and then _you_ went and confirmed it with that cake he taught you to make.”

Well, damn. Maybe Adam owes Henry an apology.

Scrap that. He’s still the cause of this mess.

“Look, I don’t even care that Orla found out first—”

“That’s a lie.”

“But we’re _friends_ , Adam. Friends talk to each other about stuff.”

“Like you talk about Gansey?”

“That’s not the same,” she insists. “Gansey’s right here. You live with him. I’m not going out of my way to hide him from you.”

Adam looks away, looks down at his hands. He knows Blue has a point. He _has_ been hiding it, has gone to great lengths to hide it, but it’s never been about a lack of trust. It’s not even been about a need for privacy. The truth is, hiding Ronan from his friends had nothing to do with them at all.

“Adam…”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to confront it, okay?” he says. “If no one else knows then it’s just this really crazy experience that’s only happening in my head and I don’t have to think about what any of it means.”

Blue stares at him for a long while with a look of pure confusion, before her eyes widen and she says, “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.” He hangs his head in shame. This is so much worse than his talks with Henry and Orla combined, because there’s no evading the truth with Blue. There’s no point in even trying. Blue is going to ask all the right questions, and Adam’s going to look inside himself to answer them because it’s long overdue.

He knows what he’ll find this time, anyway. He knows he’s painfully attracted to Ronan Lynch, the kind of attraction that goes beyond the physical. It’s just his luck it had to happen this way, with someone who is so far out of Adam’s league it’s laughable. As if someone like Ronan could ever look at someone like Adam and see someone worthy. As if it would matter if he did, when he’s thousands of miles away.

He’s an impossibility.

Adam always did long for impossible things.

“So what was your plan?” Blue asks. “Ignore your inconvenient feelings until they went away?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“You could talk to him.”

“What’s the point?” Adam says. “He’s rich and sort of famous and he lives on the other side of the country and I’ve done nothing but insult him for two months straight. I’ll never meet him, Blue. I’d be wasting my time. Hell, I don’t even know if he swings that way.”

“Do you want me to ask Gansey for you? He’ll probably know.”

“I would rather walk on brimstone than involve Gansey in this.”

“Well, so long as we’re being reasonable about things,” Blue says, and Adam bursts out laughing. God, what is he doing? What has Ronan Lynch turned him into?

“Can you tell me about him, at least?” she asks. “Because I only know Gansey’s version and I have to be honest, I can’t see saintly do-gooders sent from heaven above as being the Adam Parrish type.”

“I don’t know how to describe him. He’s weird.”

“That’s a given. Keep going.”

“Bit of an asshole.”

“Makes sense. Like attracts like.”

Adam smiles softly and thinks, _he’s funny and clever and confounding. He’s kind even though he tries his best to hide it. He’s stuck in a life he doesn’t know what to do with, just like me._

“He’s really hot,” Adam says, and Blue looks at him in a way that conveys she sees right through him.

“You should talk to him, Adam. Who knows where it’ll lead?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some of orla's dialogue is lifted straight from trk and i take no credit for it! also, you know in the books when adam keeps comparing his crushes on people to heart attacks? well that is the basis of this whole chapter. what is a crush if not a painful and very inconvenient experience?
> 
> song for this chapter is [on the floor - perfume genius](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln4S83JeY2Y)


	4. april

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right strap in guys because we're heading for ridiculous far-fetched territory! I mean to be fair this whole fic is far-fetched, but that's the beauty of romcoms, right?

Talking to Ronan is easier said than done.

It’s not that Adam’s shy. He’s used to going after what he wants, be it a good school or a good career or dates with scary hot assholes. Confidence doesn’t come naturally to him, but he’s always believed in putting himself out there when there’s something important on the line, on faking it till he makes it. After all, if he were to sit back and wait on good things coming his way, he’d still be lying face down in the dirt of his hometown.

The trouble is, Adam’s a realist. He doesn’t have Henry’s endless capacity for optimism, or Blue’s unshakable conviction that life will sort itself out if one only keeps their chin up. There are too many risks attached with betting on a bad hand; if Adam’s putting himself out there, it’s only because he knows he’s got a shot at success.

And what would success even look like here? How does he broach the subject to begin with? _Do you like me, check yes/no?_ Adam can’t do it. He can’t humiliate himself for a fleeting pipe dream. Just because he’s stopped _denying_ his feelings doesn’t mean he has to _act_ on them.

So as the rest of the week passes and March segues into April, Adam resolves not to ruin a good thing while he has it, at least not until he’s sure there’s something worth ruining it for.

It never occurs to him that the decision might be taken out of his hands.

-

“You ever been to New York?”

“Uh, no,” Adam says. He’s sitting in a car park outside Whole Foods, too reluctant to end the call and go inside. He’s only here to grab Gansey’s pomegranate seeds and something quick for dinner. It can wait. “I’m never on the east coast.”

“But you’re from over this way, right?”

“What makes you think that?”

“The accent,” Ronan says, and Adam stills. He didn’t think Ronan would pick up on that; most people don’t. “I didn’t notice at first. But sometimes, when you’re tired…”

Adam’s always tired, is the thing. That on its own shouldn’t be enough to make him drop his guard. He didn’t think he _had_ dropped his guard, but trust Ronan to sneak up on him and get beneath his skin before Adam could catch him.

“I’m from Virginia,” he says, and he hopes the pause he took before answering comes across as natural rather than stilted.

“But you’ve never been to New York.”

“Why the fascination with New York? I never took you as a tourist.”

“I’ve got a meeting with some assholes from the label next month,” Ronan says. “That’s where they’re based.”

“They’re based there but you’ve never been before?”

“I’ve been before.” There’s an odd note in Ronan’s voice that Adam can’t place. Seeing his face would help, no doubt, but they’re not on video call. Adam’s got nothing to go off of except Ronan’s words, and he’s even more sparse with them than usual tonight. “Would you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“See New York.”

“I’ve never thought about it.” A lie — he’d thought about it a lot when he was younger, _New York_ the stand-in for _better life_. But then he’d broadened his horizons, considered the long-haul, tested his strengths against his desires. Engineering played to the former and pacified the latter. MIT or Stanford were his best bet. The Bay Area, tech giant central, was a solid compromise.

He still applied to Columbia, just to see what would happen.

Ronan makes a vague hum of acknowledgement, then says, “Shit, the dogs are going wild. I gotta go.”

Adam hangs up. He sits in the gloom of the car for several more minutes, holding the phone, waiting for Ronan to call back and say, _false alarm._ When it doesn’t happen, Adam sighs and climbs out of the car.

He drifts around Whole Foods in a daze, unable to shake the feeling that he’s missed some crucial piece of information. Something that’ll make sense of Ronan’s sudden caginess.

He never remembers to pick up Gansey’s pomegranate seeds.

-

If Adam thought a night out barhopping with friends would distract him from the Ronan Situation, he was sorely mistaken.

Henry and Orla are relentless, badgering him with questions when Gansey’s not paying attention and vague yet sly comments when Gansey is. Blue doesn’t bring Ronan up outright, but she shoots Adam these meaningful looks whenever anyone else does, and that might be worse.

Worse still is that Ronan’s been _weird_ since the other night — weirder than usual, that is. It’s not obvious, the change, but Adam can feel it lingering in the background of every conversation. There’s an awkwardness now to the back-and-forth teasing, like actors in a play carrying on after missing a cue. Adam sits through their video calls in trepidation for the moment Ronan decides to spit out whatever’s on his mind — _I’m bored of this, I’m done with this, I know this means something different for you than it does for me._

The New York conversation is the cause, somehow, but Adam can’t work out why. Because he said he’s from Virginia? Because he never visits? Maybe that’s an unforgivable sin in Ronan’s book, cutting off family. But for all he knows, Adam doesn’t _have_ a family.

With the confusion weighing on him and with Orla and Henry’s comments adding to the background noise, Adam finds himself drinking faster, spending more than usual. By the time they hit their fourth bar of the night, some trendy cocktail joint that Gansey recommended because the menu is ‘inspiring’ and Orla recommended because she read about it online and is desperate to snag selfies of herself inside, Adam’s shot _way_ past his usual limit. He left his usual limit behind in bar number two.

“Grab a table,” Henry shouts over the rabble of the crowd. “I’ll get this round.”

Adam and Blue push through the throng, arm in arm. It’s busy, but then again it’s Friday. Everyone’s celebrating something or other — payday, end of the work week, brief glimpse of sunlight before the clouds roll in with Monday again.

A group of 30-somethings are in the middle of moving on from a table in the corner; Blue points it out, and the two of them race to claim it before any other groups can get there first.

Adam stumbles into the booth with Blue hot on his heels, practically falling into him in her haste. A laugh builds up in Adam’s chest, wild and unrestrained and far too loud. He’s still going when Henry returns with their drinks.

“I must say, merry is a good look on you,” Henry says as he hands Adam some obscenely bright cocktail that Adam knows he’ll regret ordering come morning. He hands a similar looking concoction to Blue, who grins and kisses him on the cheek.

“Sit down, sit down,” she says. “You never told me what happened with that douchebag at Amnesia.”

“Oh, the usual. He was throwing his weight around, said I’d knocked into him and spilled his drink. All talk, I believe. Luckily we now have our very own in-house deescalation expert.” And then Henry raises his voice and shouts, “You’re a prince among men, Richardman!” even though Gansey’s nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d Gansey and Orla go?” Adam asks. He’s shouting too, judging from the amused look on Blue’s face.

Henry gestures to the far left of the bar, and Adam looks out into the blurry maze of faces. Gansey is easy to spot, standing bright-eyed and regal amid a crowd of admirers. Of course he met more friends here. Gansey has friends everywhere, from Yale to DC to isles overseas. It’s only a wonder he can keep up with them all.

It’s a wonder he accepted Adam’s invite tonight at all, when he must get no shortage of them, but that’s probably got less to do with the company on the whole and more to do with Blue specifically.

Orla is harder to find, but then she stumbles into view with another woman clutched to her side. The woman’s face is red like she’s been crying. Orla is gesturing madly into the air. The sight of her bangles jingling up and down her arm with each hand movement makes Adam want to laugh again, so he turns away.

Except now Henry and Blue are both staring at him, and he realizes he’s missed the conversation.

“What?”

“I said, did you talk to him yet?” Blue asks, and Adam makes a face and reaches for his drink. “Adam! You said you would!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Are you still afraid he doesn’t play for our team?” Henry asks. “Because I have done my research and let me tell you, my friend, you have nothing to be concerned about there.”

Adam considers Henry’s smug smile in the dim bar lighting and decides that, really, he doesn’t need to know.

“It doesn’t matter.” And before Adam knows it he’s saying, “He’s bored of me anyway,” spilling his heart out right there onto the sticky table.

“Bored of you? Who could possibly get bored of you?” Henry sounds so indignant that Adam could almost believe there’s some truth to what he’s saying. He doesn’t, though. He knows himself better than that, knows he’s never been the type to demand attention. Never been fun like Henry or outgoing like Orla or righteous like Blue, or the sole bright spot in the room like Gansey. He’s just Adam, aloof and crabby and difficult to know, and most days that’s fine.

No day since he started texting Ronan has been like most days.

Goddamn. He finishes off his drink and gestures to it with a flourish, as if to say, _See? It’s all very fine._

Blue raises her brow. “How do you know he’s bored if you haven’t talked to him?”

“How do you know Gansey likes you if you’ve never asked?”

“Oh, I am sure that’s been established,” Henry says, “what with all those midnight phone calls.”

Blue groans and covers her face with her hands. Adam escapes to the bar and orders another round, and by the time he arrives back at the table Orla’s sat in his place with the crying woman from the floor half sprawled on her lap.

“—No, no, listen, Michaela — that lying prick does not deserve you. Okay?”

Michaela, presumably, nods and offers up a weepy, “Okay.” Orla wipes her tears away with a hankie.

“If you give me your address, I’ll go over there and storm the building till he moves out. I’ve done it before,” Blue says, and Henry slams his fist down on the table in fierce agreement.

“Direct action, yes. That is the only way to solve matters of the heart,” he says.

“Know your self-worth, honey.” Orla dabs at Michaela’s face consolingly. “If he won’t give you the respect you deserve, you need to cut him off at the root. I can give you a card reading on the house and show you where to redirect your energy, if you want.”

“But not before you kick him out,” Blue adds, and her and Orla share a conspiratorial smile. Adam feels like he’s stepped into an alternate dimension, but then Henry drags him into the booth and he decides he’s good with that.

Drinks are handed out, introductions are had, exes are disparaged, and Adam gets so lost in the pace of things that he gives up trying to make sense of it. It’s a nice feeling, putting all his worries down for the night, getting tugged in by the tide as it ebbs and flows around him. The city is glimmering and beautiful, his friends are beautiful, even these _strangers_ are beautiful. And there’s a lot of strangers now. They followed Gansey back to the table and now they’re following him out the door and onto bar number five.

At one point the conversation circles back around to Ronan, bits and pieces of the New York phone call coming out in fits and starts, but Adam’s so drunk. He can’t keep track of who’s saying what, or what _he’s_ saying, only knows that Henry’s off on another rant about “direct action” and Orla’s shouting, “He’s so _obvious_ , Adam, how do you not see what’s _obvious_ ,” and Gansey’s voice, above the fray, “You have a boyfriend in New York?”

Adam barely remembers much else. Until — later, cool night air hitting his face, him and Gansey bundling into a cab, laughing about a joke Adam’s already forgotten.

“Oh, shit, where’s your phone? Did Henry give you back your phone?”

“Right here,” Adam says, and the phone is safe and sound in his hands, because where else would it be?

Adam drifts off in the cab, head falling against Gansey’s shoulder, no concern for how weird that might be or how much space he’s taking up. Gansey doesn’t seem bothered by it, anyway. They get back to the apartment and Gansey helps him up the stairs and through the door and he’s saying, “Right, let’s get you to bed,” and somehow that’s the funniest thing in the world to Adam right now. Everything is the funny to him right now.

Adam says, between bouts of helpless laughter, “Separate beds now, don’t you fuck this up with Blue,” and then he’s in his room and his bed is right there and Adam’s never seen anything so inviting in his life.

“I would never,” Gansey says, suddenly earnest. “Blue is — She’s just wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

“You tell her that.”

“I will.”

“No, Gansey, you tell her now. Take my phone.”

Gansey smiles brightly but makes no move to take Adam’s phone.

“Tomorrow,” he promises. “And you can tell me all about this boyfriend you’ve been hiding, too.”

Confusion pushes past the haze and breaks through to the surface, but it doesn’t last long. Adam’s distracted by trying to tug his shoes off.

The bedroom door shuts behind him as Gansey heads back to his own room, and Adam strips off and crawls beneath the covers.

He’s asleep minutes after his head hits the pillow.

-

Adam wakes up to an awful hangover, makes it all the way into the kitchen for water and Tylenol and then back to his room, before the confusion of last night resurfaces. He checks his phone. There’s two missed calls from Ronan.

The bottom of his stomach drops out as awareness floods in.

_Shit._

He clicks on Ronan’s text thread, dark cloud of dread hovering over him. It’s slow-motion horror — he already knows what’s waiting for him on the other end, the only possible outcome in a movie like this, that thing he signed up for as soon as he dropped his inhibitions and got drunk with _fucking Henry Cheng,_ enabler of bad ideas.

 _YES Ill come to new York with yuo_ _  
__;)_

What has he done?

“Adam?” Gansey knocks on the door. “Are you awake? I’m ordering brunch from that bistro you like. Breakfast food, the greasier the better.”

Adam opens the door. Gansey takes one look at him, eyes lingering on the phone still in Adam’s hands, before frowning.

“I take it this has something to do with your New York boyfriend?” he asks, all polite pity, and it’s a testament to how thoroughly fucked the rest of this situation is that Adam doesn’t blink at that. What does it matter if Gansey knows something? What does any of it matter? He’s only gone and made the biggest fool of himself, and now Ronan’s definitely going to be done with him now if he wasn’t before. There is no salvaging—

The phone in Adam’s hand starts ringing. He stares at the screen in mute horror.

“And, that’s my cue to leave,” Gansey says, making a hasty retreat into the hallway. Adam has enough sense to shut the door behind him, at least. He leans against it and takes a deep breath, prepares himself for damage control, and then picks up.

“Lynch…”

“Rough night?” Ronan says, no preambles. At least he knows Adam well enough to know he never sent those texts _sober_. Then again, that might’ve been preferable; there’s nothing more desperate and pathetic than texting drunk.

“You could say that.” Deep breaths. This is only as bad as Adam allows it to be. He still has some control here. “Look, about those—”

“Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“New York. Would you really fly out here?”

“I…” This is too far out of left field for Adam to handle. What is Ronan saying?

“Because Jesus fuck, you could’ve said something before now. I thought I’d creeped you the hell out.”

“ _What?_ ”

“You’ve been acting cagey as shit all week,” Ronan says, as if that explains everything and doesn’t bring up another dozen questions.

“No I — _You’re_ the one who’s been acting weird.”

“Because I asked you to meet up and you got cagey as shit.”

Now Adam’s beyond confused. He feels like him and Ronan are having two completely different conversations here. Asked him to meet up? Dropping vague comments about New York and then disappearing before Adam can make sense of things is Ronan’s idea of asking Adam to meet up? There’s no way—

“You want me to meet you,” Adam says faintly, “in New York.”

“I’ll pay for the flights.”

“What would you do that for?”

“Because you’re the one who’s going out their way.”

“Because you asked me to.” Ronan asked him to? Henry and Orla were _right?_

This is too much for Adam to process on top of a hangover. He sits down at the edge of the bed, grounding himself.

“I asked you to, so I’ll pay. Fair’s fair,” Ronan says.

“I can afford my own flights.”

“You’re a stubborn bastard, you know that?”

Adam makes a choked sound, almost a laugh. This conversation’s spiraled so wildly out of his control. Everything when it comes to Ronan is out of Adam’s control and it’s frightening, like strapping in on a plane ride he doesn’t get to pilot.

Which is exactly what he’ll need to do in order to reach New York. What is he _thinking?_ This is irrational, pure and simple. He should clear things up and get them both on the same page, but then his traitorous mouth opens and, “We can split for them, fair’s fair” comes out instead.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. So, uh, the meeting’s on the 29th but I’m gonna be here till the 6th,” Ronan says. “I’m staying at a friend’s place. There’s like, a shit ton of rooms. You can crash in one of them.”

“All right,” Adam says.

“All right,” Ronan says, and then the line goes quiet. _One, two, three_ — “So, I’ll text you the details?”

“Sure. Yeah. Do that.”

“Will do.”

Adam’s on the verge of laughing again. There’s this weird bubbly feeling in his chest, nerves or hysteria, and all he can think is, _this is happening, this is happening, it’s happening to me._

He might be losing his mind. At least he has someone else to blame.

“Parrish?”

Adam lets out a measured breath, tries to focus. “Yes?”

“I said, I’ll show you around and shit. It’ll be good.” When Ronan says it, it’s a promise; all Adam can do is close his eyes and believe him.

Adam feels dazed as he hangs up the phone. He still feels dazed when the food arrives and Gansey calls on him from the kitchen.

“Everything all right?” Gansey asks. “You’re looking peaky.”

“I’m about to do something unprecedented and it’s probably a mistake that’s going to haunt me,” Adam explains.

Gansey hums in acknowledgement, lips pursed. He holds out one of the breakfast trays. “Will fried mushrooms help?”

-

It’s definitely a mistake that’s going to haunt him.

Asking for a last-minute holiday at work, forking out money on a flight he never planned for, travelling in a metal death trap he doesn’t trust to a bustling city he’s never once stepped foot in, a city that’s really expensive, and all of this in just three and a half weeks’ time?

Why would anyone do that? It’s so impulsive, and Adam’s _not_ impulsive. He’s supposed to be sensible.

“—And who asks someone to fly out to the other side of the country with three and a half weeks’ notice, anyway? Who would agree to something that crazy?”

“You, apparently,” Blue says. She’s sitting squished together with Henry and Orla on the sofa, halfway through a blueberry yogurt. Safe to say the vegan cause has been discarded, if only because giving up yogurt was too much of a sacrifice.

“I’m not doing it.” If Adam says this with enough conviction, it might finally sink in.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Henry says. “Although I do fear this sets a worrying precedent for the future. Do you remember the time you ghosted my lovely friend Julian because travelling over the bridge to Oakland was ‘too much of a commitment?’”

“You got talking to him in a metro cab. That doesn’t make you friends.”

“Nevertheless. Travelling thousands of miles for dick makes you quite the hypocrite.”

“That’s not—” _what this is about_ , but everyone on the couch is giving him these matching dubious looks like they don’t buy it for a second.

And maybe it is, a little bit, what this is about. But only a little bit. He’s not shallow enough or desperate enough to travel thousands of miles just for a hookup.

“I say go for it,” Orla says. “Broaden your horizons. Open yourself up to new experiences.”

“That’s a good point.”

“Also, sex is good for stress relief.”

Adam grimaces.

“Adam.” Blue sets down her yogurt pot, empty bar the untouched blueberries. “You’re overthinking this. You asked your boss for the time off and she agreed to it. You told Ronan you were going. If you’re asking for my advice, I’d say it looks like you’ve already made your mind up.”

He can’t argue with that. He made his mind up when Ronan asked; that doesn’t mean it’s a good decision.

“Think of it this way,” Orla says. “With you out the picture, Blue and her pretty boy get your apartment all to themselves.”

“ _Orla_.”

“All to themselves?” Henry mock-gasps. “I did not consent to that.”

“Great talk, guys,” Adam says, and lifts his car keys off the table. “I’m going to New York.”

Orla flips her hair and says, “I charge consultation fees, by the way.”

-

Going to New York means hours spent researching and comparing flights until he finds the cheapest deal landing in JFK on the 30th.

It means digging out the holdall he hasn’t used since college, realizing it’s battered to hell and needs replaced, then spending the night reading conflicting baggage reviews until his eyes get tired.

It mains raiding his wardrobe for his nicest clothes, having a crisis when he considers that Ronan’s standards are probably different from his, having a _second_ crisis when the voice of Blue pops into his head to reprimand him for sacrificing authenticity for the whims of somebody else, and then remembering that, hell, it’s Ronan; that thrifted leather jacket at the back of the closet will do.

It means daily check ins with Ronan, phone calls and video calls and texts, where they both dance around the subject, downplay it, subdue it. What’s going on at the end of the month? Nothing of value, surely. Nothing as important as arguing over trashy horror films —

( _I want to believe you’re trolling me with that film suggestion._

****what would you know you hipster bastard you haven’t seen it** **

_I’ve seen the reviews, they say it all._

****its on youtube** ** ****  
**** ****take 90 minutes to think for yourself** **

_Ok I’m ten minutes in. What’s with the cats?_ _  
__Wait is he fucking his mom?_ _  
__NO NO NO_ _  
__Are they werewolves? Were…cats?_ _  
__Wow. That sure was something._

****verdict?** **

_Worse than I could’ve predicted._ _  
__But the cops died and the cats saved the day. I see why you’re a fan._

 ****fucking exactly** ** ****  
**** ****its like god intended** **

_Yeah I highly doubt god’s plan involves incestuous werecats.)_

_—_ and branching out in the kitchen

(“It’s…unique,” Adam says, pointing the camera at his sunken fudge cake. “Little bit out there. Not afraid to go against social norms.”

“Parrish, that looks like an asshole.”

“No it…Oh, shit, you’re right.”)

— and just, well, talking. About the incompetent bosses Adam hates at work and the snooty bastard that keeps giving Ronan snide looks at the dog park and Adam’s meddling friends and Ronan’s annoying brothers and _life,_ everyday monotonous life, that only slows down when Ronan’s on the other line.

Sometimes Adam feels like he’s sleepwalking through the day until he gets that phone notification. He worries it’ll overload his system, meeting Ronan for real.

When they do discuss New York, it’s the bare facts only. Ronan’s meeting is late afternoon on the 30th but he’ll be free by five. Adam’s flight lands in JFK at six thirty. Ronan’s friend’s place is in Brooklyn but the public transport’s a bitch; really, Parrish, don’t be a stubborn bastard, there’s no direct line.

“I’ll pick you up at the terminal,” Ronan says. “I’ll make a cardboard sign, some glittery sparkly shit. You won’t miss me.”

“You do that and I will miss you on purpose,” Adam says.

That conversation stays with him, as the days tick down and three weeks becomes two weeks becomes one. He tries to picture it, that first meeting, but he’s never been one for creative flights of fancy. The more he thinks about it, the more he draws a blank.

It’ll be awkward, surely. They’ll have to feel things out with one another all over again, making stilted small talk while they fight to get their bearings. Adam can handle that much. That’s how it was when they first video called, too.

But if the awkwardness doesn’t go away? If whatever chemistry they have over the phone and through text doesn’t translate to the real world? Adam can hardly bring himself to think about it. He’s glad he’s still at work, grateful he’s got something to sink his energy into and distract himself with. Keeping himself busy gives Adam no room to over-analyze all the ways this could go wrong.

And man, are there many.

-

Checking in at SFO goes off without a hitch.

Gansey insists on driving Adam to the airport, even though it’s a Friday and there is no way Gansey’s making it through the rush hour traffic to arrive at Stanford by nine.

The ‘New York Friend-Not-Boyfriend,’ as far as Gansey’s concerned, is a relative nobody who shares a first name with Gansey’s idol. It’s not that Adam’s been _lying_ to him for the better part of a month. He’s just elected not to mention a few additional details. Many details. Whatever. It’s for his own sake as well as Gansey’s, in case this blows up in his face. He wouldn’t want Gansey feeling like he needs to choose between Ronan and him, after all. He was only thinking of Gansey’s feelings, really.

“Right, here it is,” Gansey says as he pulls in at the drop-off point. “God, this takes me back.”

“I didn’t realize you were a seventy-year-old war vet.”

“I just mean it’s exciting, right? Being here in the thick of things. Reminds me of my first day in California.” Gansey’s face takes on a wistful look as he adds, “To think, how quickly things change.”

Adam could point out that things can’t be changing quick enough, Gansey’s still in grad school after all, but he stalls. There’s something about the slight upturn of his lips, the nostalgic note in his voice, that suggests whatever change Gansey’s referring to is bigger than school and careers and the boring minutiae of life. How could Adam forget that Gansey has been around the world, has made friends in every state or country he’s set foot in, has had a whole wealth of experiences outside the norm. Life isn’t contained to the minutiae for him the way it’s always been for Adam.

And isn’t it pathetic: Adam’s first real holiday, and it’s only happening thanks to a drunken mistake. Change could not happen faster for him.

“So, you’ll water my plants for me?” Adam prompts.

“Of course! And you’ll text me when you land?”

“Sure thing, man.”

Gansey smiles ruefully. “I know what you’re thinking, I’m being overbearing. It’s a bad habit.”

Adam shrugs. Maybe it would’ve grated on him when he was younger, but it’s hard to think of anything that _wouldn’t_ have. Adam has no illusions about being perfect, but he’s gotten better in some ways at least. He can handle being fussed over if it’s the little stuff, and he can handle Ronan splitting him for the flights, and he can handle a brief holiday from work and responsibilities, so long as he doesn’t think too hard about falling behind. From certain angles, you might even say he’s well-adjusted.

So he says, “Hey, so long as you don’t want hourly updates, I think I’ll live,” and watches as Gansey’s smile grows more genuine.

The anxiety Adam’s been putting off comes back the moment he’s checked in and waiting in the terminal. He’s always hated flying, not that he’s done much of it. There was his flight out to Stanford when he was nineteen, a layover that took so long Adam feared he’d never make it out of limbo. Then there was the grad school interview at MIT, when Adam had worried that staying on at Stanford might not be an option. He’d been sick that time in a Boston Logan bathroom. Not his proudest moment.

This time he’s taken motion sickness pills and he’s got a book to read and ear plugs to help him go to sleep. He’s prepared for everything. That twitch in his leg is just excitement.

But really, he shouldn’t have worried: everything is fine once he’s in the air, resigned to his fate being out of his hands. He switches between reading his book and shutting his eyes, and the hours pass, and he gets by with minimal panic.

Until he’s back on the ground. Six hours later, nine when you count in the time difference. Adam stretches out his legs, takes several deep breaths, and follows his fellow passengers into New York.

Ronan said he’d probably be delayed. He said he’s no good with time management on the best of days and the traffic at JFK is a bitch. Adam’s prepared to wait. He checks his phone first, sees there’s no new messages from Ronan, and then sets off to explore the terminal.

He gets a coffee, explores the souvenir store and the Met store and the shopping mall.

He getssome donuts and wanders around the food hall and sends Ronan another text. It’s been forty five minutes but he’s not worried.

He resists a second coffee and grabs a seat. He is starting to get worried.

After ninety minutes of radio silence, he’s beyond worried; he’s pissed.

 _Hey, that’s me off my flight. See you soon._ _  
__Did you get lost? I’m at terminal 4._ _  
__Seriously Lynch what gives? I know you said you’re no good with time but I’ve been here going on ninety minutes. Answer my calls, will you?_ _  
__If this is your idea of a joke it’s really not cool._ _  
__Give me the address, I’ll make my own way there._ _  
__???_ _  
__Don’t pick me up, I mean it. I’m getting a hotel room._

The prices for hotel rooms are _obscene_. Adam didn’t factor this into his budget plan. He didn’t think he’d have to. He’d thought, naively, that Ronan was someone he could trust.

Adam tries calling again but it’s no use. It rings and rings before finally going to voicemail. And that’s the worst part, knowing that Ronan’s phone is in use and he’s just choosing to ignore it. If the phone was switched off, at least Adam could content himself with wild theories about Ronan’s health. He could tell himself, Ronan didn’t mean to stand you up, he just got held at knife point and mugged, or kidnapped by his own Annie Wilkes who’s tired of waiting for album two, or involved in a bad accident where his phone got smashed to bits. This has nothing to do with _you_.

Adam calls Ronan’s number once more. It rings and rings and rings.

The sun’s gone down outside. His phone’s at twenty percent charge. He is tired and jetlagged and starving and he has no idea where he’s supposed to sleep tonight. A mistake that’s haunting him, for sure.

He has unread messages from Gansey and Blue and Henry. Adam can’t bring himself to open them up.

Maybe Ronan got cold feet. Maybe he decided Adam was better off only knowing from a distance. Or maybe this has all been a set-up, a prank. String the asshole along until he feels something for you, then deliver the knock-out blow. That’ll teach Adam for shit-talking a man on his own damn fan site.

Adam should’ve seen this coming. He should’ve been smarter than this. Should’ve known not to go all in on a hand he had little odds of winning.

After three hours, Adam starts looking up the soonest flight home.

He’s on the verge of booking the earliest morning flight, resolved to curl up on this shitty chair and sleep through the night, when his phone rings. _Ronan_ rings.

Adam stares at his name in shock. He’s got half a mind to ignore it, see how Ronan feels. He’s too tired for petty games, though. He lets it ring three times before picking up.

“Adam, _fuck_.”

“So, you’re not dead or incapacitated,” Adam says. “Good to know.”

“Listen, I know you must think I’m the biggest fucking jackass right now—”

“Your words, not mine.”

“I swear to god, there’s an explanation.”

“What, your car broke down and you forgot how to text?”

When Ronan doesn’t say anything, Adam’s shock turns to disgust.

“You don’t really expect me to believe—”

“No! Jesus, no. Look, where are you? Are you still at JFK? ‘Cause I can’t pick you up but I’ll give you directions—”

“I’m not going anywhere to meet you when you still haven’t told me what the hell happened.”

There’s another brief pause. Then, “Trust me, you’ll wanna meet me for that,” and is Adam’s good ear deceiving him or does Ronan sound _amused_?

That’s the last straw for Adam. If Ronan’s in a place where he can laugh about the days’ goings ons then whatever caused him to stand Adam up couldn’t have been serious. Must’ve just been the usual rock star behaviour, screw everybody else because it’s not like their needs matter. He must think Adam’s a joke. A loser. Someone so desperate he willingly crossed the country just to spend a few days’ in Ronan’s presence.

Maybe him and his friends laugh about Adam all the time. _Check the state of this guy out._ Maybe that’s what he brought Adam here for, entertainment.And all those months Adam spent getting to know Ronan, convinced they shared a connection? Delusion. People like Ronan don’t go for people like Adam. This situation is impossible.

Adam’s not sensible at all.

“Why the fuck would I want that?” he spits out.

Ronan says, “Because there’s no shitting way you’ll believe me until you see this for yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this chapter is [All I Want - Joni Mitchell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq2jhs19_V8) and you can find me on tumblr [here! <3](https://punchupatawedding.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also the movie mentioned in this chapter is Sleepwalkers and I know I made it sound horrific but it's a genuine classic if you appreciate trashy 90s horror! Madchen Amick is there, what else matters?


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